The Signing Time Academy has become a truly global organization with Instructors around the world. In the past month alone, we have added 70 new Instructors. We currently have Instructors registered in every US state as well as Abu Dhabi, Africa, Australia, Bahrain, Barbados, Brazil, Canada, China, England, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Philippines, Russia, South Korea, Singapore, Switzerland, Taiwan, and Vietnam!

Signing Time Academy Instructors are:

• independent business owners who come from all walks of life
• committed to teaching children through American Sign Language signs
• free to choose their level of certification and the classes they offer
• authorized to sell  Signing Time, Baby Signing Time and Potty Time products
• ready to help your baby or your child experience the full benefits of signing

Find your local Instructor.

Apply to become an Instructor.

This song is from the Signing Time Preschool and Child Care Program, Vol. 1. It’s great for infants and toddlers. Sign the words that are in all caps. You can make new verses by adding different words – any sign will work!

Signing Time Preschool and Child Care Program Sample Song - Vol. 1

• Download the lyrics to this song – PDF
• Buy the Preschool and Child Care Program, Vol. 1 $49.99
• Buy the Complete Preschool and Child Care Program, $199.95

A note from Rachel Coleman and Emilie de Azevedo Brown, co-creators of Signing Time and Two Little Hands Productions, the company that commissioned this white paper.

Download PDF now

“Until now, if you wanted to get an objective summary of the academic research on signing with babies and children that has been conducted over the past three decades, you would have had to pull together findings from a wide array of disparate and sometimes obscure sources. Now, thanks to Dr. Claire Vallotton, a trusted authority and leading researcher on this topic, you now have access to a comprehensive reference list of 68 studies and a concise summary of over three decades of research about the impact of signing on development and learning from early childhood through elementary school.

This white paper is for you - the many parents, teachers, health professionals, social workers, students, and writers who have asked us for unbiased information that can be used to inform practices and shape professional opinions. We are pleased to be sharing this paper with you. Please download it and pass it along to anyone you think may benefit from it.”

 Download “Signing With Babies and Children” PDF now

About the Author

Claire Vallotton, Ph.D.

Dr. Claire Vallotton is an Assistant Professor at Michigan State University and a member of the International Infant Sign Researchers group. She studies the development of young children’s language/communication and social-emotional skills from infancy through early childhood. Many of her studies involve the use of signs with infants and toddlers in order to understand (1) how the use of signs affects children’s relationships with parents and other caregivers, (2) how using signs affects children’s own cognitive and social-emotional skills, and (3) how the specific gestures and signs used with young children vary across cultures and are a reflection of cultural values for parenting.

This blog post is part of our Deaf Culture series for Signing Time families.

If you would like to meet Deaf people in your community and get a chance to practice signing in a relaxed atmosphere, you might want to visit www.deafcoffee.com. This site provides a list of coffee socials for anyone who uses sign language. Florence Angelucci started the Deaf Chat Coffee in Batvia, Illinois. Attendance grew from a handful of people 5 years ago to about 70 people per month, including sign language students from Waubonsee Community College. Angelucci says, “We’re hoping that hearing people come here and get motivated to study sign language. We want to promote better communication between everyone, not just ourselves.”

Deaf Chat Coffee events are free and open to the public. If you want to attend with your child, you can take these steps to prepare:

• Visit www.deafcoffee.com and find a group near you
• Email the coordinator and introduce yourself
• Ask the coordinator if other children will be attending
• Brush up on fingerspelling your name and your child’s name
• Watch the Signing Time Nice to Meet You DVD and practice greeting signs together

Excerpt from “Television show leads to talking miracle” by Susan Jones of the St. Albert Gazette featuring Signing Time Academy Instructor Shelley Wywal.

Photo by April Bartlett of the St. Albert Gazette

When Elora was born, her parents were told their new infant could have a severe language disability. The baby was kept in the hospital for a week because of the Down syndrome and Wywal remembers visiting with countless specialists, who bombarded her with information. “There were speech specialists and this specialist and that specialist, and they all said she would have a severe language delay,” Wywal said. The first day she brought seven-day-old Elora home, the exhausted young mother sat in front of the television to rock and nurse her baby. She began flipping channels and for some reason stopped to watch and listen to Signing Time. Perhaps she was intrigued by the show because she had previously heard that some families were using baby signing with their infant children, but she didn’t really believe in the concept of teaching babies sign language and she thought it would be too difficult to learn American Sign Language (ASL). “I watched my first episode as I nursed Elora, and by the end of it, I had learned to sign the colours of the rainbow,” Wywal recalled. That one stunning half-hour television program caused Wywal and her husband to study ASL. Immediately afterwards, whenever they talked to Elora, they paired the spoken word with signed words. “We chose words that would have meaning to her — key words. I learned I talked too much so I had to learn to narrow it down to simple words, like ‘milk,’” she said. When she was 10 months old, Elora signed her first word, “milk.”

Read the full article.