We are Alok and Aswathy and we are deaf parents, working professionals and founders of r of Talking Hands India a sign language resource in India dedicated to teaching ISL. As a sign language-dependent family it was important for us to introduce our hearing baby to signing early on in his development; that led us to some research and subsequently we purchased baby sign language kit from www.babysignlanguage.com. Here in India we do not have a baby sign language resource and we wanted a simplified method for our little one to get started. I am comfortable with the basics of American Sign Language as it was my primary signing language prior to learning ISL. My wife Aswathy grew in deaf culture in India so she is a fluent ISL speaker. At home we began combining ISL with Baby Signs and we came up with basic signs that worked for us and equipped us to empower our baby the best that we could.
We were amazed and extra happy when Evan started singing when he was just four months old. His first sign was milk. At five months he began signing eat contextually. Our hearts could not stop smiling with pride!
One funny thing during 5-6 month was when he was in need of milk he used to get up and sign it alone as tired parents we frequently neglected to see that he was signing. When he became frustrated because he was not getting what he needed he began tapping us and voila, magic began to happen. To fix the problem we began leaving the lights on so we could be quicker to identify his needs.
We think that teaching sign language keeps him less frustrated and happier. That is very important to us. His next signs which he mastered between month 8 and 9 included grandfather and father. Evan loves watching signing videos and follows along with excitement . Many of the signs Evan Evan knows and uses were the result of his engagement with the videos. He is very smart and observant and constantly surprises us.
Now he is 14 months old. He can sign papa, Grandpa ,fan ,milk, eat ,light and bye . As well can speak papa ,grandpa ,bye bye and Amma /Aaai (Mother ) with little effort. Evan can hear so we are also working on his speech.
We wish to see him singing many more signs before he turns 2. As well we will be very proud when he will write sign Language as his mother tongue.
