ECSE 421

"Normally I have my expectations under control, but for some reason, it really frustrated me today that I wasn't able to have my own experience at the Temple" -guest speaker

As I listened to the experiences of the guest lecture on Wednesday, I realized how grateful I am that Zandi has been hitting her developmental milestones. The speaker mentioned how great preschoolers are, but that ultimately, you want your children to progress past that point. Having her come and speak to out class gave me a reason to reflect on my own judgments and ideas that I have towards others. How I view others needs to be changed because I look through a pretty narrow set of eyes. She made me want to rethink the way I view members of my community.

This week we began our family projects. As of right now, the parents in the scenario are expecting their third baby and the mothers water broke during the middle of the night at 24 weeks into the pregnancy. This scenario really hit me because this could totally happen to Tyler and I. I am interested to see what resources will be available to this family and what their main concerns will be.

For my HWD project, I contacted a speech therapist this week to see about doing an interview.

I also researched the benefits of sign language because the infant I am working with in my other class is starting to learn some basic signs. Sister Swenson advised me to avoid signs that aren't concrete such as more, please, and thank you. But I still had to wonder if there were other pitfalls to try to avoid when trying to help a young child to communicate. One of my toddlers in toddler lab is working on language development and this past week, he verbally labelled several items. would this have happened if he knew the sings for these words instead?

To begin my research, I read an article by Lynn Corley titled Benefits of Sign Language." Lynn says, whether language is oral or manual does not matter in the formation of a language base." For a long time, it was generally thought (myself included) that sign language would delay verbal communication if taught to deaf children, as well as to toddlers or infants. But now, it is actually advised to use sign language for children with disabilities other than being deaf or hard of hearing, including down syndrome, autism, and other intellectual disabilities. Lynn goes on to say, "there appears to be a correlation between tantrums and a child's inability to communicate their needs. With signed language communication becomes easier."

Corley, L. (2016, May 11). Benefits Of Sign Language. ASL University. Retrieved from http://Lifeprint.com/asl101/topics/benefits-of-sign-language.htm