Key signs to Auslan

Reflecting on my talk I did recently I keep coming back to the start of my journey.

key word signs and how I incorporated them into my home and George’s life. This video is really embarrassing for me, but I had a bank of about 10 signs and all from an app, it’s not Auslan and is without any help.

George was 6 months (28 July 2022).

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/7bb774_e798e248a46c4c67a698e45b021e2a5f/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

I would try and find a few new signs each day and incorporate those into the home, although it was just between George and I.

I was worried my family wouldn’t share my opinion on this. We were still deep in the AV and speech sessions where we had a lot of emotions, stress, and pressure to focus on oral communication only.

I was worried about how we were going to raise George and if we were even equipped enough to do so.

These were the only times I ever felt inadequate to be his mother. Thinking about this still makes me cry. Each time I proofread this paragraph, I have to stop to wipe my tears.

The words we heard and the pressure we felt truly tainted the first 12 months with George, but it’s part of the journey.

George’s first sign was at 8 months. From my understanding, this aligns with a lot of children of Deaf parents. Wow.

I recorded everything as I wanted to see progress and have a form of evidence to back my decisions. This is George’s true first sign.

By 11 months, George had 6 signs.

At 18 months, he has over 100 signs and is starting to develop 3-sign sentences.

He often uses 2 signs together and is starting to develop hand shapes. George will ask questions in Auslan and roleplay in Auslan. He knows how to gain attention correctly and how to follow complex instructions. George has also started using mime, gesture, and possibly depicting signs. I can’t speak on that too much as I don’t always know what category it comes under.

An example I have is that he came up to me and did a winding movement on his finger (the same sign as strawberry, although on his pointer finger) and asked where it was. I immediately knew what he wanted, even though I had never done this sign with him before. It’s an eyeball toy that you wind up and it does little hops along the floor. Gesture, mime, depicting sign — I’m not sure — but he got his message across beautifully and clearly. He was 17 months old.

When I don’t have the sign or language in Auslan, I will mime and gesture what I want, and he understands. Maybe he guesses, I’m not sure.

My first example there’s no video for, but I was tired and on the lounge while my husband was looking after George, and George came up to me.

In English, I asked George to get me the blanket (of course he didn’t respond at all). I didn’t know the sign for this and finger-spelled it, although George wouldn’t have known that either at 16 months.

I gave him a sentence using facial expressions, gesture, mime, and sign that looked like this:

I signed that I was cold.

My facial expression showed I wanted to fix my problem and wasn’t feeling comfortable.

Then I mimed pulling a blanket up and snuggling into it, with a content and happy facial expression, and then signed “red” and finger-spelled “blanket”.

He grabbed the red blanket and gave it to me. It was on the other end of the lounge. My lounge is modular.

Amazing.

Voice was off for all of this, as it’s becoming hard to do both at the same time, especially when it’s not just hand signs I’m using.

Which I think would have been acceptable Auslan, although I’m unsure, as of course I’m still learning. But I was able to give George an instruction and a reason as to why I wanted him to do something and what I wanted. No voice, and he understood enough to complete the request.

I think a big misconception is that Auslan is just hand shapes, signs, and movement of the hands, but my gosh, how wrong that is. I would call Auslan a complex and full language.

Anyone who has learnt a second language as an adult knows how difficult it is.

I still call myself a beginner, although I feel I’m past that now — maybe competent, I’m not sure.

Miles from proficient, but not a beginner, although I will still say beginner if it comes up.

I understand so much more than I can sign back, as I am only a small fraction into my journey. I would say 11 months based on the first time I learnt from a Deaf person, and 8 months from my constant and primary teacher, who I feel has gotten me and my family to where we are today.

Prior to that, it was apps and self-research for 3–4 months.

I am now at TAFE and have 20–30 hours a week.

TAFE is teaching students the language for the purpose of becoming an interpreter. This is not my goal. I think Auslan 4 is where I will stop, but who knows — that is too far ahead for me to think about.

I have noticed recently that the use of both languages together is becoming difficult, whereas previously it was easy as my Auslan was lacking while I did both. Now, when I do both, my English is usually the one lacking.

This is intentional, as I already have English and don’t need to think to use it. If I want to gain fluency, I must work hard at Auslan and use it.

I would prefer to struggle with my English if I’m using both. George will need me to use correct English when it comes to writing and reading, so I will get guidance on this in the very near future. It has already been touched on.

I need to balance my own learning while helping my child be bilingual and have a strong first language at a minimum. This gives a whole new meaning to the phrase balancing act.

Don’t get me wrong though, English is still my comfortable language to use, and I don’t miss anything. I don’t have to think, I just know. I still must think hard and process when using Auslan, but during a conversation my thinking gap has closed from 7–10 seconds to maybe 1–2 or 3 seconds.

Count this out and see how long it is. It’s long, especially when trying to have a conversation.

I can follow a conversation for the most part and notice a new sign but still know what has been said and kind of fill in the gap. Most of the time I ask what the sign is, or I will remember it to ask my teacher later. It depends on who I’m talking to and how I feel about asking at the time.

This is the same with English. Miss a word in a sentence and you can still follow it. Communicating with people I know is easy, but new people can be difficult. If everyone signed like my teacher, I would be flying along, but the reality is that with all languages everyone will use it differently.

One of my first goals was to have our teacher come and not need an interpreter. Tick. Although I think she works harder to understand me than I do her 😅

My next goal is to be able to follow and be involved in a conversation with 2–3 people signing. This is so hard for me, as I still need a few seconds to grasp what has been said and then work out how to respond. My response time is slower than my understanding time.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/7bb774_f5fc9376e88049a4aabffdd10ceb9c23/480p/mp4/file.mp4

I go to a playgroup on Fridays, and I am the one with the least Auslan skills. Most of the parents are fluent, with Auslan as their first language, and are Deaf.

There is a lady there who has the most infectious personality. She is smiley, happy, and I love the feeling I have when I’m around her. She’s calm and easy to be around. The problem is I really struggle to understand her. I would say she is the hardest person I have met so far to understand.

Her signs are fast, she signs low, and she often uses one hand. A lot of Auslan uses two hands, and I am being taught Auslan by a teacher, so I am learning the language as it is formally taught rather than as a language someone has grown up with that naturally changes and develops over time. Like English with slang, I figure. I’m unsure of the exact comparison, but I think slang is probably correct.

She isn’t signing wrong, she just isn’t communicating with me as a teacher and student, but as two people with children. Her hands are also full a lot of the time, so signs are different in those moments.

My goal is to understand everything she is saying. At this stage, I miss a lot, so conversations are hard, but she is a person I must understand.

My two future goals — I’m interested to see how long it will take me to achieve them.

I predict I will be able to constructively be in a conversation with multiple people first. When I say she is hard to understand, she is hard! But I enjoy her company and her children. I also don’t want her to change how she communicates with me. It’s her language, and I want to learn and adapt.

I started Key Signs when George was 4–6 months old and started Auslan teaching when he was 11 months old. When George was 1, I started Auslan with our family teacher (Teacher of the Deaf and Deaf mentor), and at 17 months I started at TAFE.

I find it interesting to see the journey so far, and not just George’s development, but mine too.