guidelines for teaching language 27
Make communicating fun and useful
Children enjoy communicating when they have
real things to sign or talk about, and people
to sign or talk with. Try to give your child
many opportunities to learn about the
world and encourage her to
sign and talk about what
she is learning. Making
conversation with your
child will help her
learn faster than if
you ask her only to
memorize and repeat
signs and words.
What are
you making,
Najuma?
Let your child help you do work
As your child helps you do your work, communicate with him about
what you are doing. Use words or signs to ask him to help you do
something, to get you tools, or to help in other ways. Your child will be
more interested in paying attention and communicating when he is
helping you do something you both value.
Get your child’s attention before you communicate
A child who cannot hear well needs to watch your lips move or see you
gesture or sign to understand you. He also gets a lot of information from
seeing the look on your face. So it
is important to wait until he is
Suren’s brother
touches his
looking at you before you begin
to talk or sign.
arm to get his
attention.
To get a child’s attention, move
or wave your hand where he can
see you, call his name, touch him,
or hit a nearby object to make a
loud noise so the child can feel the
vibrations.
Helping Children Who Are Deaf (2004)