Jan
31
2012
It’s Tuesday… here’s your sign of the week!
This Week’s Featured Sign: Green
Watch the Video (Click the Image Below to Play) Free QuickTime Player required
Download the Flashcard (click on the image. Print in color or black-and-white and adjust the print size according to your needs.)
This week’s sign comes from: Vol. 6: My Favorite Things – DVD
Alex, Leah, their frog Hopkins, and host Rachel Coleman teach ASL signs for fruits, vegetables, colors of the rainbow, and activities.
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Jan
30
2012
For nearly a decade now, Rachel Coleman has been bridging the worlds of the Deaf and hearing with the Silly Pizza Song. Now a Deaf couple in San Francisco are using actual pizza to do the same thing!
Read more about Melody and Russell Stein and their Mission District restaurant, Mozzeria in this recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Mozzeria employees use ASL to communicate
Deaf couple launch pizza place in the Mission
Paolo Lucchesi, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, January 5, 2012
As at most new and noteworthy restaurants in San Francisco’s Mission District, there’s a full house during the dinner rush at Mozzeria, a month-old Italian restaurant and pizzeria.
Every one of the 45 or so seats is full. There’s a slight hint of smoke in the air, thanks to the huge wood-fired oven in the middle of the narrow dining room. Music is playing, but the din is noticeably muted.
A waitress carrying two full plates meanders through the crowd, stopping short of a standing patron blocking her path. With both hands full, she can’t tap him on the shoulder. And before sidestepping and successfully swiveling by, she can’t ask him to move, because the diner is deaf. And so is she. Continue Reading »
Jan
30
2012
This year, we’re bringing together all of our Valentine’s Day crafts from the past few years into one place. We hope they will help you and your family create some wonderful memories as you celebrate this special holiday together.
Jan
30
2012
By Jennifer Thorsen, SLP – winner of our Facebook Success Story Contest
As a speech-language pathologist, I am no stranger to signing. I use signs as part of a total communication approach with my clients in early intervention, to facilitate communication with my own children, and with my elementary-age students who have limited verbal communication skills. However, I’ve never had a student quite like Yadi. Yadi’s ability to express herself verbally is extremely limited, and she mainly uses signs and gestures to communicate her wants and needs along with a communication device. She is also bilingual, which posed another challenge for us. While her device is programmed in Spanish and English, she is still learning how to use it and doesn’t always choose to use it. Signing is her most efficient means of communication at this time, and she always tries to say the word as she signs it. Unfortunately, not only is she difficult to understand but her parents don’t know all of the signs she will use at home with them. With the language barrier between me and her parents, it is difficult for me to communicate with them so we can work as a team and give her more support at home.
When I saw the Facebook post for the contest on the Signing Time page asking people to “Share what is your favorite Signing Time Product to give as a gift, who you like to give it to and why,” I couldn’t help but think of Yadi. I immediately went to www.signingtime.com to browse through products, and imagine my excitement when I saw that several of the DVDs now had Spanish play options! I knew that this would be the perfect thing for Yadi and her family. Now her family could learn the signs and Yadi could learn new signs in a fun and motivating format at home!
Signing Time and Baby Signing Time have also been very helpful to me as they have increased my professional skills and my skills as a mom. Thank you so much from Yadi, her family, and me!
Jan
25
2012
Eliana
Our beautiful daughter Eliana visited with Rachel & family in 2008 while taping Baby Signing Time 3 & 4. Thanks to Signing Time and dedicated parents, Eliana has been reading since she was 11 months old. Her reading has been tested at the seventh grade level. Last year Eliana’s overall development was assessed. With an IQ of 143, she is in the genius category and exceeded the 130 requirement to become a member of MENSA.
Eliana is very active. This December, she will be in a new Disney Channel show (Austin & Ally). She has a role in our local church drama for the third year in a row. As part of ‘Hands of Praise’, she was invited to sign a song at a local community event.
See her video http://www.elianaarroyo.com/AboutEliana.html.
Her younger brother, Elijah, 3 (also in Baby Signing Time 3 & 4), is on track to equal or exceed his sister’s accomplishments. At age 2, Elijah was spelling and writing his name and alphabet, and at age 3 he is reading at the third grade level. Also their 18 month old twin siblings can already read and sign most of the signs on BST and Signing Time DVDs. As their communication skills continue to advance they say and/or sign their requests.
Thank you Rachel, Aaron, Emilie, Leah & Alex and everyone else who has contributed to our children’s past, present and future.
-Michael A.