WATCH: New mum starts sign language lessons for babies

Thursday 18 July 2019

A speech and language therapist has started Little Puffin Signing to teach hearing babies and toddlers sign language.

The entrepreneur and mother to six-month-old Nola, Steph Black recently started up the business as a way of mirroring what she has already taught her own child from a young age.

Signing can have lasting and wide-ranging benefits for children from hearing and non-hearing backgrounds from as young as three months. At six-months Nola has already started to use the sign language for "up" after months of repetition based training. 

Steph is a fully qualified Signalong tutor and is the only private speech and language therapist currently practising in the island, she explained that signing for hearing children can help to bridge the vocabulary gap which can happen by the time some children get to primary school. 

"I set up Little Puffin Signing, because of my little puffin here Nola," said Steph.

Pictured: Little Puffin Nola who Steph jokes thinks her name is "hair" because she hears the word so often. 

"The aim of the business is to teach parents and their little puffins to sign because it really boosts language development and communication, it reduces frustration; there's loads of benefits to signing with your baby.

"Many think signing is only for children or babies with a hearing impairment but there are vast benefits to signing with all babies including increased interaction, easier language learning and a wider vocabulary. 

“Fine motor skills and understanding of language tend to develop earlier than spoken word so some children can use signs from as early as six months. Giving children a way to communicate their needs at an earlier age can help to reduce frustration and research shows that signing can accelerate speech development.

“I’m very excited to be teaching signing in these new classes and hope the babies and their parents enjoy learning something new together,” she said. 

WATCH: Express' interview with Steph Black. 

Steph graduated from City University London and is registered with the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists and the Health Care Professions Council.

She has more than six years’ experience working with children and young people in Guernsey who present with difficulties with their language development, speech sound development, anxiety around communication and stammering. She is also specially trained to work with children who have conditions which impact on their communication such as Autism, Down Syndrome and Selective Mutism.

Pictured: Steph and Nola, pictures by John McCarthy. 

Little Puffin Signing classes are for children aged three to 12 months. They are run in blocks of six, building on the skills of signing as the sessions progress, and the aim is to equip babies and parents with signs that they can use in daily routines.  The next available slots for sessions take place on 26 July. 

The classes focus on a different topic each week (such as farm animals, the park and food) using books, songs and sensory activities to demonstrate and practise the signs. The sessions can be booked online at www.stephblack.co.uk

Little Puffin Signing will also be running signing sessions at pre-schools and teaching Signalong to staff at pre-schools and primary schools in the island from September 2019.