Summary: I wanted to share a letter to you that a mother of a nonverbal 3-year-old wrote to me. “Hi Jason. My son has been in speech therapy for a while and is beginning to use words. He babbles quite a bit and some of the words he uses are difficult to understand. This is all new to us and we are excited. However, I’m surprised that his speech therapist doesn’t use sign language in therapy. I have heard that sign language encourages speech development and I figured she’d want to use it. At least teach him a new way to communicate. What are your thoughts on this? Do you use sign language in your therapy?” So, I did respond to this mom, but I’ll tell you what I said. First of all, it’s impossible for me to know the reasoning behind someone else’s treatment. A good therapist has a reason behind whatever course of treatment they are taking and should always explain it to you. If you don’t know why a therapist is doing this or that, you need to ask. Now, as to what I think about sign language in therapy. I don’t use it that much primarily because I haven’t had many kids on my caseload who would benefit from it. If that’s the only way a child can communicate, you bet I’d use it. However, most of the time I have been working on getting the child to verbalize and fortunately have had success at that. I will tell you my frustration with sign language in speech therapy. So many times I have seen a child pointing to an object that they want “juice” for example, indicating that the child wants more juice. The logical thing to do is to give the child the juice. Especially if they are pointing at it. It’s right there and they’ve singled it out. They are communicating very clearly what they want. I think it’s a disservice for a parent or a therapist to withhold that very specifically requested item because they didn’t sign “more” or “please.” I’m not a big fan of “more “and “please.” Those could mean anything and when not taught properly, it’s used for everything. I’ve seen so many kids that want something, frantically signing “more.” But because “more” is the primary word taught, I or the parent no longer know if they want more juice, Cherrios, snacks, music, tv, fun, etc. So I have always found that part to be useless. However, it can be useful with concrete signs. But remember, the goal is to help your child communicate, not learn sign language. Whatever functional form of communication that they choose should be rewarded.
