ASL Gifts for Deaf Toddlers & Children of Deaf Adults

We all learn our mother tongue through repeated exposure to it in the home.

While the adults talk around and to us, we pick out sounds, then try them out in our own mouths. When we get it right, the cheering and encouragement is enough to make us want to try another word too.

Next thing you know, we're jabbering away unable to be shut up, as we provide running commentaries on our lives and engage in our first conversations.

For babies whose mother tongue is destined to be American Sign Language, there is nothing different about this process. But instead of sounds, they need signs.

The ASL baby gifts that follow will help keep their language within their view, until they're able to communicate their lives and needs quite fluently!

All babies and toddlers love their nursery rhymes. They are little stories, which infants can grasp, remember and repeat with ease. The rhyming verses help develop their brains, training their memories and forging links between random things.

Of all the nursery rhymes in the world, a firm favorite is regularly revealed to be Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

Filled with bright pictures of baby and stars, this Sign and Sing Along book incorporates basic ASL to tell the lines. Aimed at infants aged one and over, they will soon be signing away to every word in the familiar verse. Thus increasing their signed vocabulary in a fun way.

Nor is it the only Annie Kruber Sign and Sing Along book for babies out there.

Your CODA or hard of hearing infant will love the colorful images. They'll want to handle the books, even when you're not free to sign the verses too.

Let them play with them. The ASL toddler nursery rhyme books have thick cardboard pages. They've been created for little fingers to turn over (and chew on the edges) without any damage that would render the books unable to be used again and again.

A four volume bonanza of DVDs teaches your toddler ASL with aplomb! 

Appropriate for CODA or deaf babies as young as three months old, Baby Signing Time captivates them with beautiful, bright visuals. Then it introduces signs relating to environments that your infant will find familiar - playtime, visiting friends and family, meeting new people etc.

Baby Signing Time has won many awards from parenting groups and national bodies, including the Dove Foundation and the National Parenting Center.

It's so good that even parents of non-deaf infants have bought these DVDs. After all, their little ones can't communicate either at a few months old. But they might just be able to sign.

Line the nursery or play room with these cheery ASL wall posters and your hard of hearing toddler will learn them just by looking!

The entire alphabet is laid out across twenty-six hand sign posters. Their bright pictures will attract baby's attention, then he or she won't be able to resist trying out the sign in each corner.

Created out of sturdy, laminated cardboard, the ASL alphabet posters can be used to form a kind of mosaic on one wall, or placed in a row to make a border around the room. Each tile is 8 and a half inches by 11 inches, therefore plenty big enough to see!