Signs of Life : The Brownie Chronicles

Travis had very few communication skills when we first met him .  The adults caring for him communicated with him by poking, prodding, and pointing.  He communicated back with smiles, crying, laughter, and head-banging.  That was about it.  Our first few days with him, he would drool, kick his legs, and even slam his head on the floor, wall, or crib.  When he was happy, he would smile, be silly, and sometimes laugh to the point it was excessive.  These behaviors reduced rapidly and massively within the first few days we had him.  I credit most of this to Ken and to ASL.  When Travis would cry to the point of drooling, Ken would wipe Travis' mouth and sign, "No, you don't need to drool.  Just tell us what you want."  I actually told Ken I felt like it wasn't fair to correct Travis, telling him "no, no" about drooling since he didn't understand anything yet.  Ken rightly pointed out that we'd be speaking English to him if he was heari...

In my last blog post , I shared the 6-year wait and recent "reveal" of our Universal Orlando/Disney Cruise trip.  Planning for this trip consumes much of my free time these days, so I figured I'd just go head and blog about it. Ken and I booked this trip late 2015.  After narrowing down trip details, we had to decide when to tell the kids.  We revealed the trip to our older kids on Christmas, but chose to not tell the boys until closer to our travel time.  In the end, Tian, who can hear very well, picked up on our chats and figured out our secret well before the official reveal we did for them earlier this month.  Travis, though, had no idea beyond knowing that we would "one day" go on a Disney Cruise (Mickey boat, as he calls it).  If he would ask about a cruise, we would say, "We'll go when you're 9 or 10." We considered not telling him at all until the day we were set to leave.  In the past, when an exciting day is upcoming, he gets very...

Just the other day, the boys had a friend come over to play.  Before the friend arrived, his mom sent me a text saying that her son was bringing his Batman costume.  I told Travis, "Your friend will be wearing his Batman costume when he comes over."  Travis' face lit up, eyes lifted, and mouth opened wide.  Before I could finish signing, "Why not you go upstairs to get your Iron Man costume?" he was signing, "Yes, yes!" and making his way up the stairs.  Moments later, he came back to tell me he couldn't find his suit.  I directed him to look in my bathroom in the hamper.  He did and it wasn't there either.  Finally, I told him to hold on while I sent a message asking his dad if he knew the costume's whereabouts.  He did and Travis put on his alter ego. I couldn't help but make a mental note of how that conversation was such a big deal.  We were discussing something happening in the future: friend will arrive soon.  Telling Travis...

My two girls are off visiting their Nana and Pappy, so since they are away and the little boys are still in school, I made some plans to spend one-on-one time with my oldest boy. Then we got the call from TSD:  "Tian has a 102 fever and needs to be picked up."  So, TJ and I took a one-on-one drive to the school to get a very sleepy and very hot Tian. Having Tian home prompted me to post a quick update about this little comedian. He reminds me of TJ at the same age.  Tian is a natural ham who loves to be the center of attention.  He is not shy in the least!  He'll approach people, ask questions, and mostly assumes everyone in the universe knows sign language. For example, at the Christmas parade downtown, a parade photographer walked by and asked if she could take our picture. After taking a shot of the two little boys and me, Tian tapped her on the arm and asked, "Take another picture of me. I'm Spiderman."  He then proceeded to pose in a number of ...

Last week, Master ASL! posted a fun video teaching the signs of various popular superheroes.  Their staff member, Travis, did an amazing job. I couldn't wait to show the boys, and, sure enough, the loved it!   (If you haven't seen it, it's imbedded below.) Yesterday, a second installment was posted and was equally fun to see.  This video included two of my Travis' favorite superheroes: Power Rangers and Iron Man.  Click the video at the bottom of the blog to view Part 2. My Travis gets very excited, animated, and "talkative" when the topic is one of his favorite superheroes.  (This excited his parents because his expressive language is what is lagging right now.) Over the past two years, he has made up his own signs for these characters; I'm always impressed with what he creates.  Watching Master ASL's Travis sign "Power Rangers" and seeing him talk about how he, too, loved them when he was younger, made me think of Travis and why he ch...

We kicked off our 2013-2014 school year by sending off the boys to TSD the last week of August. Tian is now in pre-k and Travis has started Kindergarten!  They both have excellent teachers, so we couldn't be more pleased. I have a bit of a learning curve to get through this year. I've never had a child in government-run grade school.  Now that Travis is in Kindergarten, he has homework he brings home every night. The idea of having him do assigned homework after he's been in school for seven hours goes totally against my personal teaching philosophy, so the second week of school, when the homework began, I struggled with my own attitude regarding his homework. In the midst of my exasperating about it to Ken and silently to myself, I realized I wasn't being a good example to my kids.  How can I expect them to work diligently and with a good attitude, even when they don't like what I'm asking of them, if I don't model that myself?  So, I look at the h...

Back in January, I sent this email out to a select few of my homeschool friends regarding my oldest son: I have a question and decided to ask you few ladies. My son has struggled for years with penmanship. He writes very neatly and very well  in his  handwriting  book . If he writes on his own, on a blank sheet of paper, he just can't do it.  If he writes anything, it's a mess. He can't express his thoughts on paper because he struggles so much to remember how to physically form each letter.  I've tried keeping a penmanship alphabet in front of him, but he will look up for almost every letter.    I've been putting off dealing with this for the past two years. I have said, "He'll snap out of it." "One day it'll all click for him."  But he's close to 10 years old now and he's feeling "stupid" (his own words) because he "can't write." Today, I sat him down to try to find out the problem and he sa...

In Part 2 of this series, I was excited to share some of what I learned about technology and using ASL eBooks.  Well, if you like the good, old fashioned paper book, have no fear!  Drs. Jean Andrews and Damara Paris from Lamar University , shared their team's research findings from the Alabama Emergent Literacy Study.  They focused on the " Adapted Little Books ." Below is only a small portion of their presentation.  There is so much information that goes beyond my knowledge, so I will direct this blog to parents of deaf emergent readers. As a homeschool mom, I'm very familiar with "little books."  We personally used Sonlight's own Fun Tales  with my three hearing kids. ( example )  You may be familiar with Bob Books .  The Alabama study used these 20 Little Books .  These "little books" are usually 6-7 pages, use high frequency words, have a close picture-word match,  and use short phrases to tell a whole story.  It ...

Using Technology for Literacy of ASL & English Bilingual Deaf Children That's another handful of words!  Basically, if you're teaching your deaf (or hearing) ASL/English bilingual child to read, there are some amazing tools out there to enrich that experience. At the conference , several different people presented on the topic of technology and ASL ebooks. VL2 Storybook Apps Check out their " About " page, too. Click here to get the book in the App Sto "VL2" stands for " Visual Language, Visual Learning " a Science of Learning center funded by the National Science Foundation and hosted by Gallaudet University.  The work they are doing is SUPER exciting for parents like me! Right now, there is only the Baobab book, but two more books are in the works.  Each book, priced at a bargain $6.99, is packed with a rich literary experience for your bilingual child.  As the website says, "Every child loves and deserves a great story....

This weekend, I was fortunate to attend the (get ready, this is a handful) " ASL & English Bilingual Consortium for Early Childhood Education " Summit IV Conference. Building Bilingual Partnerships: Home, School, and Community I say I was fortunate because I attended as a lay person.  The conference is aimed at teachers, researchers, and administrators working in the field of Deaf Education.  I'm a parent of Deaf and hard-of-hearing kids. I also happen to be an educator since I've homeschooled my hearing kids for over 8 years.  I am somewhat knowledgeable regarding ASL/English bilingualism since my professional field is teaching ASL and interpreting.  However....I was surrounded by people who knew worlds and worlds more than I about educating Deaf, bilingual kids!  They have challenges like I never imagined.  These educators and administrators are fighting a long battle that shows only slow, incremental progress.  (The battle being that agai...

I wanted to comment on Dr. White's TedxTalk video " Establishing a Sound Foundation for Children Who Are Deaf or Hard Of Hearing" .  With my permission, he used video of our boys signing in the car with their dad.   I will comment in order of the lecture, so you may want to watch the first several minutes to get a context: First, Karl White says, "If not identified early, the deaf child fails to develop language, has a difficult time in school, is socially isolated, and will have a menial or no job later in life."  The entire opening is a typical scare tactic used on hearing parents.  The opening line of this TedTalk begins with a negative view of being deaf. Let me enthusiastically state that I support early identification! It WILL increase the child’s chances for success IF the parents begin pouring language into their child right away. But, even if it is not discovered that the child is deaf until later, the child CAN succeed and doesn’t have to be beh...

After three weeks at TSD, it's amazing to see the new language development in both boys!  We can tell they are chatting all day with their teachers and peers.  I will actively work on capturing a video of their conversations next week.  In the meantime, here are a few changes we've noticed: Travis: - adding "want" to his requests - Normally, he would point at something, such as his red Power Ranger mask, and sign, "POWER-RANGER MASK, RED."  Often, he'll add a fussy face or sound to his request.  Now, more often than not, he signs, "POWER-RANGER MASK, WANT!" - saying "mine" instead of using first person for everything - Where he's always pointed at items, then signed, "TRAVIS" to mean, "That's mine," he is now signing, "RED MASK, MINE." - putting together longer sentences - As I had blogged earlier this week, Travis is putting together 3-ASL-sign sentences, which is equivalent to a 5-8...