The importance of children and British Sign Language (BSL)

"Sign Language is a dance with words, to be enjoyed from babyhood, through childhood to adulthood" 

- Marilyn Daniels (Author of Dancing with Words: Signing for Hearing Children's Literacy)

There are over 45,000 deaf children living in the UK, with 90% of deaf children are being born to hearing parents who have little or no experience of deafness or knowledge of how to communicate with a deaf person (National Deaf Children's Society, 2019). According to statistics, over 120,000 deaf adults and around 20,000 deaf children in the United Kingdom use British Sign Language (BSL) to communicate with others (Sign Community, 2013) and is the most preferred language for around 145,000 people in the UK (British Sign, 2019). BSL is a form of sign language used in Britain which involves the use of hand movements, gestures, body language and facial expressions in order to communicate (Sign Community, 2013). There is a clear comparison between spoken and signed language. Spoken languages rely primarily on a single articulator, whereas signed languages involve multiple articulators including hands, mouth, face, and body (Emmorey, 2002). 

BSL can be learned and taught through taking courses, or teaching yourself at home through websites and YouTube videos. For example, I took the time to learn the colours of the rainbow in BSL to be able to teach in my placement class for them to sign, whilst singing the song in Welsh titled 'Lliwiau Enfys'. I recently taught them how to sign the chorus of 'True Colours' which they all thoroughly enjoyed and they enjoyed being taught the colours of the rainbow as well. Here's the video of myself and Oak Class signing along to 'Lliwiau Enfys' here.

https://twitter.com/MissCDudley/status/1108353454865612800

I learned the correct BSL through a Facebook video of a young girl called Jade and her little brother Christian named 'Sign Along with Us'. Christian suffers with cerebral palsy and is visually impaired which caused a brain injury and is unable to communicate verbally but through BSL. Jade and her family learned BSL so they were able to communicate with Christian and others who are not able to communicate verbally. Everyday, Jade and Christian post a video on their Facebook page of a word in BSL so others are able to learn and sign along with them. Jade has set up a viral online campaign for it to be compulsory for schools to teach basic signing to children. As well as myself, their videos have encouraged many other to join in and learn basic sign language and gave me a better understanding of how important it is to be aware of the language, especially with children. 

The benefits for children learning sign language are as followed:

• Increased Brain Functionality - learning a new language has benefits to how the brain functions, so the brain will be able to recognise and negotiate meaning, which can translated in problem-solving tasks (DeafBooks, 2015)
• Multitasking skills - Children who learn BSL will improve their ability to be to switch between tasks, and able to switch between different structures easily (DeafBooks, 2015)
• Improved memory - Learning BSL involves a lot of memorising, due to the variety of multiple articulators they have to use and can improve a person's long term memory. For a child who is learning BSL, they are more than likely to find improved performance in academic areas (DeafBooks, 2015)
• Becomes easier to learn other languages - The techniques children can gain whilst learning BSL can be applied to learning any new language, and the positive cognitive benefits that come with learning BSL can be replicated along the process of learning further languages (DeafBooks, 2015).

BSL is not mandatory part of the curriculum, however it was recognised as a language in its own right in 2003 and schools are free to teach it if they choose to do so (Department of Education,). In relation to Donaldson (2015) and his 4 purposes to the curriculum, children being aware and learning basic BSL allows them to be ethical, informed citizens because they are becoming aware of the fact British Sign Language is all some children, young people and adults use to communicate with others. Making themselves aware of this will enable them to have a better understanding of what others are going through and can spark a possible interest in learning another language, besides a spoken one. 

Taking from personal experience, British Sign Language with a bit of time and practice, can be easy to pick up. Being able to pass on the knowledge I have onto others, including children is an amazing feeling. Having the knowledge to be able to communicate with someone who cannot verbally communicate may come in hand one day in our lives, so I am encouraging others to join in and sign along! Here is a basic greetings in BSL video to get you started below:

References:

British Sign (2019) What is British Sign Language. Available at: https://www.british-sign.co.uk/what-is-british-sign-language/ [Assessed 21 March 2019]

Donaldson, G. (2015) Successful Futures: Independent review of curriculum and assessment arrangements in Wales. Available at: http://gov.wales/docs/dcells/publications/150225-successful-Futures-en.pdf [Assessed 21 March 2019]

National Deaf Children's Society (2019) Sign Language. Available at: https://www.ndcs.org.uk/information-and-support/language-and-communication/sign-language/ [Assessed 21 March 2019]

Let's Sign (2015) Benefits of British Sign Language. Available at: http://www.deafbooks.co.uk/Benefits-of-Learning-Sign-Language [Assessed 21 March 2019]

Sign Community (2015) British Sign Language (BSL). Available at: https://www.signcommunity.org.uk/british-sign-language.html [Assessed 21 March 2019]