Seeking help on how to learn ASL

Fematale

Fematale

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Hi everyone,

I'm new to this site so please forgive me if I appear to be ignorant. I am a hearing mom who has 4 hearing children. However, one of my sons has a severe case of selective mutism. It is an anxiety disorder that makes it impossible for him to talk to others outside of our home. He has been in therapy for a year and a half and while he is finally able to speak with his therapist, he's still unable to speak in school. This has proven to be more detrimental than I initially thought it would as he wouldn't ask to use the restroom or anything. I know a few "baby signs" from when my daughter had to learn during speech therapy and decided to teach him a couple of signs. Surprisingly he is able to communicate with his teacher with no problems and is elated that he can now somewhat communicate. His teacher is completely receptive and just as excited that we've finally figured out how he can have words. While it's easy enough to look up signs for "restroom", "drink", etc.; I want to learn and help teach him how to actually say sentences. I don't have a lot of money to take online courses and was wondering if there are any free sites available to teach me how to structure a sentence or simply where to begin with learning this beautiful language? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you,
Marcee
 
How old is your son? Is he otherwise typical? It's actually not unheard of for hearing high functioning kids with apraxia (probaly the closest high functioning diganoses to your child) to learn ASL as a first expressive language. You might want to contact Oklahoma School for the Deaf, and see if they have any resources, suggestions etc.http://www.osd.k12.ok.us/ Make sure you emphasize that your child is high functioning......Sometimes they get people who fixtate that their severely/profoundly mentally disabled, or classic autistic kid would benefit from ASL. Those kids generally can't benefit from ASL as a full language, but more as a Augmentive and Alternative Communication approach. However there are high functioning kids with apraxia or tracheostomies, or other things who can benefit from learning ASL as an actual language.
 
He is 6 years old and yes, otherwise very typical. :) My oldest son has high functioning autism and if any of my children could have benefitted from ASL, I would have said it would have been him. Caleb talks perfectly fine at home, non-stop actually. He is extremely intelligent and memorizes everything. When he first started school 3 years ago and two weeks in they told me it'd be nice to hear his voice, I reminded them of who my son was because I truly thought they got him confused with another child. Then another year went by with him not speaking in school and his pediatrician (whom he'd never uttered a word to either) referred him to a therapist and suggested selective mutism. I had never heard of it and read what little research I could find. I didn't think it was that serious until he came home from the first day of kindergarten in excruciating pain because he couldn't tell anyone he had to use the restroom. He ended up with a bad UTI. Previous grades had always scheduled restroom breaks regularly. Anywho. Hindsight is 20/20 and I realized that he had never spoken to any visitors to our home either. He played with them and interacted on some level but looking back, his brother was always his voice. I felt horrible as a mom that I had never noticed it. But he would speak to me when they were in the same room, just not directly to them. So thank you both for your very helpful information!
 
Fematale said:
He is 6 years old and yes, otherwise very typical. :) My oldest son has high functioning autism and if any of my children could have benefitted from ASL, I would have said it would have been him. Caleb talks perfectly fine at home, non-stop actually. He is extremely intelligent and memorizes everything. When he first started school 3 years ago and two weeks in they told me it'd be nice to hear his voice, I reminded them of who my son was because I truly thought they got him confused with another child. Then another year went by with him not speaking in school and his pediatrician (whom he'd never uttered a word to either) referred him to a therapist and suggested selective mutism. I had never heard of it and read what little research I could find. I didn't think it was that serious until he came home from the first day of kindergarten in excruciating pain because he couldn't tell anyone he had to use the restroom. He ended up with a bad UTI. Previous grades had always scheduled restroom breaks regularly. Anywho. Hindsight is 20/20 and I realized that he had never spoken to any visitors to our home either. He played with them and interacted on some level but looking back, his brother was always his voice. I felt horrible as a mom that I had never noticed it. But he would speak to me when they were in the same room, just not directly to them. So thank you both for your very helpful information!
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You know....in addition to contacting the School for the Deaf, maybe also contact orgnaizations like United Cerebal Palsy, the Arc, Easter Seals etc.....Although your boys are mild, there still might be some good resources etc..... It's hard to find resources for milder issues ...but there might be some good helpful ones......even mild kids can strongly benefit from specialized schools, classes, camps etc.
 
Thank you again, to all of you, for your helpful information. It's all been very useful and I've spent a lot of time researching ASL. I took a course way back in high school and remember it being such a beautiful language and have been drawn back to it. My next mission is to find a college that I can attend so I can become fluent in ASL. This has been such a huge stepping stone for my son and he's made huge strides in school now that he's able to somewhat communicate; just over a matter of weeks. I can only imagine what more practice will lead to. I've been inspired to help other children in whatever way possible. I know this is something that won't be accomplished over night and will take a few years of hard work but I've never been happier than I am now knowing that I'm helping put a bridge between the huge gap.
 
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