ASL astounds!

Hello again!

It is so much fun watching Del sign. She watches us so intently, and tries so hard to get the hand shapes right. She has become extremely interested in the alphabet, and will sign most letters and mouth or say some as we go through the song. As mentioned in my previous post, her current favorite signs are "Hmmm. . .idea!" and "Happy New Year!" Here is a video with Del signing those two phrases.

Del has started to really hone in on the facial expression aspects of ASL, and can do some pretty impressive things with her eyebrows (definitely from Daddy's side!). Here she is playing a favorite game of hers - saying yes and no with exaggerated facial expression. She also really enjoys playing the contrarian. . .if we say no, she says yes. . .if we say yes, she says no. It's actually worked in our favor because I can pretty much bet on the success of a little reverse psychology!

Another new ASL skill of Del's is using classifiers. Classifiers are used in ASL to show movement, location, and appearance. After a signer indicates a person or thing (such as a deer), a classifier can be used in its place to show where and how it moves (such as running, laying down, sleeping), what it looks like (big, tiny, injured), and where it is located (in water, on top of a mountain). Del became very enamored with Christmas this year, and loves Santa and the reindeer. After watching Daddy and Grandma tell stories about them, she started to sign with classifiers to show the deer running slow and fast.

Lastly, here is a longer video demonstrating Del signing the ABCs and then signing along as Mommy sings "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "Row Row Row Your Boat" twice each. At the very beginning of the video, Del signs "pink" and "purple," "old" and "new," "warm," "hat," "monkey," "red," "yellow" and "green." She signs all of this as I am asking her about her new coat and hat. During the first two songs, she signs "spider," a classifer of the spider climbing the spout, "rain," "washed out," "sunrise," and "dry." During the second two songs, she signs "row," "boat," "merrily (happy)," and "dream."

And now that I feel accomplished in catching up on my blog, I'm going to go pick up little Miss Del from daycare and go play in the sunshine! Have a great weekend, everyone!