by Tracey Sweetapple

Single and a starving student at the University of British Columbia in 1993, my professor, Janet Jamieson, explained that babies born to Deaf parents could communicate their needs at a much earlier age than could babies born to hearing parents. I was fascinated by the notion that an infant could share his or her thoughts and needs in sign language. At that time I didn’t know much about babies…they had always looked kind of blob-like to me. What precisely did they think about or understand? Nobody I knew signed with their babies and it had never occurred to me that anyone other than Deaf people or interpreters signed.

When our first daughter was born in 2002, I sang and read to her constantly and played French music in the background while she napped so that she would have an ‘ear’ for the accent that still eludes me. I felt guilty if I was doing chores and not holding her and stimulating her neurons and dendrites during her every waking moment. I worried if I was parenting properly – whatever that is. And as she began to sit upright and make eye-contact, I began using two signs that I knew were the most helpful with infants. MORE and FINISH.

In just about any context, these two signs are appropriate. A parent doesn’t have to sign every word, only the key ones. Do you want MORE milk? Do you want MORE tickling? Bath-time is FINISHED. It’s time for bed, toys are FINISHED. By using these two signs repeatedly, our daughter would eventually be able to use them expressively to indicate if she wanted MORE food, MORE kisses, or if she wanted her Mummy to FINISH singing. (I may be tone-deaf, but I have heard tell that Sarah McLachlan’s daughter, who also learned some signs, told her mother the same thing!)

Presto! At eight months of age, Desiree began using these signs to answer me and to make her needs known! As soon as she signed MORE, I began using other signs such as MILK, JUICE, EAT and anything else that became significant in her life. Desiree created some of her own ‘signs’ to make herself understood like “blankey” which she indicated by a long sniff, a scrunched up face, and a twist of the wrist indicating the laundry machine – but that’s another story. She used facial expression and detail for signs I hadn’t shown her, such as signing RED and pointing towards the shelf to indicate that she wanted her Flintstones vitamin which is in a bottle with a red label. Desiree’s signs are not exact, they are a kind of babble, but she signs them the same way each time and her meaning is clear. Her memory for signs amazes me too.

One morning as I buckled her into her car-seat she began shrieking. My first impulse was to feel cross – what’s she hollering in my ear for? But then I looked at her chubby little hands and I saw the sign. In her own way she was signing TRAIN – a sign I had shown her three weeks prior when we passed one. But why was she freaking out about a train now? And then I heard it…the sound of a train’s whistle in the distance. My focus and Desiree’s are, of course, completely different. Caught up in the rush of, “Let’s get out the door, got to get to work on time, I’m dying for that first sip of coffee, why are you being so difficult child?” I wasn’t in her world or following her rhythm.

Through the use of some American Sign Language signs I am better able to follow and enjoy my daughter’s thinking, understand her personality, and those things that are significant to her. Deaf Culture has given us a tremendous gift that we are able to use each day to strengthen our parent-child bond. I couldn’t imagine parenting without sign language. It opened up my mind.

Tracey has her Master’s Degree in Special Education from the University of British Columbia and taught for seven years at the British Columbia School for the Deaf where she was also Department Head. Tracey was a member of the American Sign Language Integrated Resource Package Curriculum Development Team in British Columbia and is a strong supporter of the benefits of second language learning. Tracey is now employed by Rocky View Schools in Airdrie, Alberta as a high school guidance counsellor