Eeny Meenie Miny Moe. . .

Hello there. It's been a little while. How silly of me to think I would find even twenty minutes of quiet time each week to sit and make some kind of cohesive sense of the chaos and wonder of watching my child grow. It's not that I don't have any down time. I spend a couple hours in the evenings doing my own thing after Del has gone to sleep, but it's harder than I thought to put that time into action and converge onto the laptop and try to write intelligible things! So here I am yet again, late enough that I should be sleeping but I'm not because I have to share the video I managed to capture earlier this evening and put down some thoughts about motor development.

With a hearing child of hearing parents, we talk about that child's motor development and language development as two separate but parallel entities. Those fascinating and wonderful motor milestones checked off: reaching, picking up a block, transferring it to the other hand, reaching to the side, picking up small objects with the thumb and forefinger (also called a pincer grasp), pointing. Meanwhile, the language milestones run their course: cooing,  screeching and growling, babbling, turn-taking, first words. These paths overlap and weave their way through the first year of the child's life, as the child delights all those around her with her amusing journey from neophyte to expert on each milestone reached. It's quite clear with such a child that a wave is a wave and "ba ba ba" is babbling, and that a pincer grasp is a pincer grasp, and "doggy" is a first word.

Not so much with the kid who is acquiring a manual language.

For Del, and all the other children exposed to a signed language as infants, the line between motor development and language development is not clear because they require the same skill set, the same body parts. For Del, a wave might be her way of saying hello or her attempt at signing "all done" or "change." Or what looks like a pincer grasp could be a pincer grasp, or it could be her attempt at the letter "G." Or perhaps she's trying to tell us something is tiny by signing "little." (See below for all of the letter handshapes for ASL)

(Caveat: The laryngeal and lingual movements required for the production of speech sounds are fine motor movements as well, but what I'm speaking to here are fine manual motor skills, or those that require the use of the hands and fingers).

I realize that we can tell a true pincer grasp from her attempts to communicate (mostly because she has an object she's trying to pick up at the time), but the point is that the paths of language and fine motor development overlap and rely on each other when it comes to manual languages. I find myself wondering if fine motor development milestones are reached in a different order or rate with children acquiring a signed language, seeing as language development is contingent upon fine motor skill with sign language whereas the two are separate with a spoken language. I'm also curious if it's easier to determine a child's handedness earlier if they are acquiring a signed language, instead of having to wait until they start drawing or writing. Are native signers more dexterous with both hands than those who don't use their hands to communicate? Is there a higher incidence of functional ambidextrousness in the deaf community than among hearing or non-signing persons? So many questions, so precious little time to search for answers.

Today's video shows Del using her newly mastered pincer grasp to pick up her beloved cheerios. At one point she takes a cheerio from between her thumb and forefinger with the readied pincer of her other hand. So far we aren't sure about her handedness, but she seems to prefer the right one when sign-babbling with one hand. It will be interesting to watch as she figures that out.

Please enjoy the video, and don't hesitate to share your thoughts and/or experiences.