Signing at home

The MCH Children’s Speech and Language Therapy team have developed this video series for parents/carers. Adults are encouraged to use signing alongside spoken language (sign as you say the key words) with children who are developing their talking. For more information on this please visit Introduction to signing. The videos are very short (around 1 minute each) and many include just one sign.

Try learning one sign at a time. Use that sign lots of times with your child before you try to learn a new one.

Once you have completed this series you might like to look at some of the signs here: Signing for schools and pre-schools :: Medway Community Healthcare as some of these will also be useful at home.

To help make your signing as clear as possible you might want to practice making the commonly used hand shapes shown below the videos:

The signs used in this signing series are BSL signs – BSL (British Sign Language) is a full language which does not include spoken words however the signs from BSL can also be used alongside spoken language to support children who are developing their talking.