ASL, pidgeon, SEE

[Guest guest]

Hi again-

Some of you may be aware of our moving odyssey with the past 18

years. He was born on the West coast where Signed Exact English (SEE) was

the preferred method of educational communication. Over the years we

slowly moved to the East coast where Signed English was the preferred mode.

Then back west to the Midwest and to a large Deaf Community where ASL was

preferred. Poor (or lucky, depending on how you look at it) Andy was

exposed to it all. He learned to code switch (picking one of the three

methods, depending on who he was talking to) very early on. I do think his

broad base of early signed English exposure was an asset in learning

written English. The change was more difficult on us than . When he

was about 10, I began a 3 year interpreter training program so I could

learn ASL.....now that was TOUGH!

I would like to express the MOST important thing you can do for your child

is to COMMUNICATE in some mode, whether it be SEE, spoken English, ASL PSE.

I really dragged my feet learning to sign with his first year....I

was more concerned about his walking(or lack of) at that time. Fortunately

I " snapped out " of that attitude pretty quickly when I realized how

important communication was. So, GO FOR IT, and use what works for you!

Give your child a ommunication base and build on that with alternative

communication methods!

Sally (, 18)

Sally Prouty

mndb@...