Alex

Silence has never been so sweet as parents learn a more effective way to communicate with their crying and tantrum-throwing toddlers, without having to say a word.

Brandy Brass-Rafeek, owner of Sweet Signs, teaches parents to use simple sign language with their pre-verbal baby, and how and when to introduce the technique to their child. It is an American Sign Language-based program that is designed to improve and ease the communicate between parents and their hearing baby.

During the class, parents sit with their child and first learn to sign basic words like 'milk', 'more' and 'eat', and then, by using songs, games, and storytelling, begin to teach the baby how to sign back. When the parents return home, they incorporate those words as often as they can, by using the sign and saying the word aloud.

At ages varying from six to 18 months old, the children can learn to sign back in a matter of weeks, says Brass-Rafeek, relieving parents of the task of having to guess what they want.

"I could know what my eight-month-old was thinking," says Brass-Rafeek, who started to sign with her daughter when the child was six months old. "I now wish I had started earlier."

Her interest in signing began in high school when she worked as a cashier at IGA, and a woman who was hearing-impaired came to her cash register.

"I was just blown away," she says, as she remembers seeing how the women used sign language. After that experience, Brass-Rafeek decided to take a night class at Georgian College, and soon discovered the woman at her till was the one who taught the class.

After going to college and becoming an interpreter, Brass-Rafeek observed her hearing-impaired friends communicating with their extremely young children, and started Sweet Signs in 2002. She saw the results first-hand with her own daughter, who spoke full sentences before she was two years old.

According to the sign with your baby program, on which Sweet Signs is based, learning to sign with your child won't delay verbal language development, and, in fact, it may accelerate it. Proponents believe babies who can sign usually start to talk sooner and have larger vocabularies than babies who don't.

The most rewarding aspect for Brass-Rafeek is, "to see the communication and to see how much easier it is makes their lives, and the day-to-day interaction between them."

Having taught approximately 200 parents and caregivers about signing, Sweet Signs continues to hold various classes and workshops in Barrie and surrounding areas.

By Elizabeth Koning

Deafness

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