“Me, too!” A Making a Difference story

This post is by Joanna Smith of Surprise, AZ and is part of our Making a Difference series.

My family and I went to a Harlem Globetrotters game the other weekend in Phoenix.  At the end of the game we went down to meet the players.  I saw a mom and her approx. 8 year old boy signing to each other (way faster than I could even understand).  It appeared that they were both deaf.  I pointed them out to my 12 year old daughter (who learned to sign from Signing Time over the past four years).   I told her to go sign to him.  She was immediately nervous, but when I pointed out that she knew how to sign, “Did you like the basketball game?”, she wanted to try it out. She approached him and got his attention from a little ways away.

She signed to him,  “Did you like the basketball game?”
He looked completely shocked and signed back, “Yes.”
“Me too!”
she replied.

The mom saw him sign to someone else and turned around to see who it was.  I smiled and waved at her and we left.   My daughter and I were so excited from this experience.  She had just had a conversation (brief as it was) with a stranger in a foreign language.  He probably didn’t even know about Signing Time.  It was a great witness to me that what I have been teaching my children for the past four years is a REAL LANGUAGE!!!

Due to our experience with Signing Time, an opportunity was created for my daughter to “talk” with someone with her hands.  It was AWESOME!!  There is a deaf lady that works as Target in our town.  I want to take all of my kids there to practice their signing with her.  I bet she would love it.


Joanna received a $25 Signing Time Gift Card for sharing her story.
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2 thoughts on ““Me, too!” A Making a Difference story”

  1. When my daughter was 3 yrs old we were at a hotel water park and my daughter was signing to my dad that she was thirsty and hungry. A little bit older girl came over to their table and signed with my daughter. My dad said that it was neat to see my daughter be able to communicate with some one other than who she knew. My daughter can hear but she has PVL and CP and didn’t start talking till she was 5 1/2 years old. She is verbal now (she is 7 years old now) but at a 2 year old level, she still signs what she is not able verbal speak. Her music teacher is very impressed with how fast she picks up the hand movements that go along with the songs they are learning. To my daughter it is just like watching Singing Time, hand movements with music. Signing is still her first language. Thank you Signing Time for making it possible for my daughter to have a voice before she had a verbal voice.

  2. Your Making a Difference Story and the comments really touched my heart. Thank you for sharing your stories and thank you, Signing Time, for starting this series and bringing these stories to light!

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