Early Literacy in ASL (Retelling a Story)

Recently Ezra has been blooming in his language acquisition. He is on target with hearing peers for typical developing children. He regularly uses two word sentences and has mastered the “question” signs, WHAT, WHERE and WHO.

We often see sentences like:

• Where paci?
• Who (index)?
• What (index)? *normally referring to a sound or something he did

Although we still see a lot of typical two year old tantrums, they are not much different than my older son’s at the same age and I am not 100% convinced they are linked to language concerns.

Recently when we were out to dinner, Ez demonstrated a very impressive higher level literacy skill. We were out to eat, when a table near us had a cheese flambé brought to the table. Of course he was fascinated with the unexpected fire. What was fascinating is that after the waitress left, he continued to tell (and retell) the story to my husband who was sitting across from us.

In the video below, you will see Ez say:

FIRE (one hand, small signs)

Index (point) to the area where the waitress had been

FIRE (smaller)

FIRE (bigger)

FIRE (Twirl)

SMOKE (twirl around and around)

 

This is a wonderful and complex example of his continuing natural language development. We are thrilled with Ez’s growing ASL fluency. He is using his hearing aids regularly in school and we do plan to introduce some speech therapy this year. Otherwise, he will continue to focus on developing a strong natural language foundation to continue exceeding his developmental goals.