3 Reasons Why You Should Teach Your Kids ASL Signs

Contributing Writer: Alaine Jacobs

Before I even had kids, I used to dream of all of the cute things that they would say when they were little! I’m a former high school Spanish teacher, so I truthfully imagined having little bilingual kids running around the house speaking Spanish and English all day. That was the dream!

But, that dream was put on hold when I had my first child who was born Deaf. Then I had my second child who was also born Deaf. All of a sudden we were facing surgeries for cochlear implants, massive amounts of speech therapy each week, and children who were way behind their peers in learning how to talk and communicate. 

I was convinced that the dream of bilingual kids running around the house was gone. And I mourned those previous expectations that I had about what having kids would look like for us, while also moving forward with language learning with my Deaf kids.

Then I had my third baby, who was fully hearing. Through her I got to experience the “original dream” when I taught her language and she could talk back to me right away. At the time of writing this she is 4 years old and she’s definitely in the peak stage for saying cute things! 

The other part of the dream of raising bilingual kids? Well, it’s happening (a work in progress…)! But instead of raising Spanish speakers, I’m raising American Sign Language (ASL) signers. 

When my first Deaf child was born we found out that using ASL with kids is actually a powerful communication tool! We continued to use ASL with our second and third kids, and with each of them saw firsthand how ASL helped them communicate better in the early childhood years- even our hearing child!

Today I want to share with you what I’ve learned over the years and go over three reasons why you should consider including ASL signs as part of your communication plan with your child. 

ASL Helps to Cut Down on Tantrums

Tantrums in the early childhood years are no joke! It can be so frustrating for you and your child to constantly miscommunicate and it ends in screaming and crying on the floor. Every time.

Most tantrums with younger kids happen because they can’t communicate with you everything they are thinking and feeling inside. Kids at ages 1-3 actually have advanced thinking skills, but it gets all muddled up when their speaking and communication skills are lacking! 

I mean, imagine the horror when you want some goldfish and you’re given Triscuits instead! (may or may not be a true story from our house…) 

And that is where ASL signs come into play. The signs can fill in the communication gaps when your child isn’t quite speaking yet, but they still want to tell you what they want!

With all of our kids we started out with basic ASL signs like: more, fish, water, all done. And then we expanded the signs from there. 

We started teaching our kids these signs when they were about 3-4 months old, and by the time they were 9-12 months they were able to do the signs themselves and tell us what they wanted. 

It was really relieving for them to know that they could get their point across to us, and doing that little bit of sign alone was helpful in decreasing fussy behavior around not communicating well.

ASL Signs Help Kids Develop Speaking Faster 

A really interesting, and unexpected thing that we discovered while teaching ASL signs to our kids was that it actually helped their speaking skills develop faster!

The reason for this is simple- ASL signs give kids a context and meaning to the speech that they are learning. 

Most kids are visual learners from ages 1-5 years old. Pairing an ASL sign with the spoken word gives the child a visual representation of the word that you are saying. 

With that visual they are able to make meaning of the word faster, and therefore learn how to use the word in spoken speech faster. 

It’s pretty fun when you realize that something as simple as a few ASL signs helps your child speak faster as well! 

You Can Use ASL Signs in Crowded/ Loud Places to Communicate Better

A weird way that my husband and I use ASL signs is to communicate across the room in crowded places! 

Honestly, this seems like a silly benefit, but if you’re ever been to a kids' playspace or a crowded playground, you know how loud those things can get!

Instead of shouting over the noise, we can communicate a little bit with signs. 

Also, when it’s loud we can communicate with all of our kids (yep, even the hearing one) and we don’t have to yell at the top of our lungs or worry about if they can hear our instructions through the noise. 

Also, recently at my sister’s wedding my mom and I had a whole conversation using the little bit of ASL signs that we both know to give instructions to each other over the loud music! It’s a super practical reason for learning ASL signs that we never saw coming.

Conclusion

To wrap this up (because I know you have little kids clamoring at your feet right about now): learning ASL signs is super beneficial for all kids. Using ASL signs makes language more accessible for all kids, no matter if they have hearing loss or typical hearing! 

I encourage you to start with 1-3 signs and see what a change it can make in your child’s ability to communicate with you!

Contributing Writer: Alaine Jacobs

Alaine Jacobs is a wife and a mother of 3 children, two of whom have hearing loss. Alaine runs a free Facebook community called Raising Deaf Kids and writes a weekly Substack newsletter.

Listen to Alaine's guest episode on the Transforming the Toddler Years podcast where she talked about early language skills through play.