Everything You Need to Know About Autism and the Power of Sign Language

The dream of being a parent like in every movie, story, or YouTube video is a parent and a child gazing into each other’s eyes, giggling in joy. Imagine you are desperately trying to interact with your child, but each time you do, your child averts eye contact and appears to be uninterested. You try again and again, but still no interest. Your heart sinks. 

    “What if my child never communicates with me?”, you feel hopeless and afraid that you will never connect with your child. You buy extravagant presents and even plan exciting events, but your child remains inattentive. You try to engage with your child in stimulating conversations and look within yourself to be more emphatic, but still, your child rarely expresses their feelings by using language or gestures. 

Frustration and disappointment conquer your every thought as you begin to compare your family to your friends’ families. This is not the end of it, your child has multiple outbursts in the most random situations, and you are clueless about why this behavior occurs. You tell yourself you cannot lose your temper, exhausted; you do as best you can.  

If you read this and feel a rush of stress overcoming you, well, this is the exact situation many parents of children with autism experience. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)  states that about 1 in 54 children will be diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). 

    However, there is an innovative intervention! This intervention is successful and tested by developmental psychologists, the name of it sign language. These incredible and easy-to-learn methods will provide direction for addressing social and language deficits to Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). 

Let’s examine how Sign Language is possible and the benefits of exposing children with autism to sign language by examining research findings. But first, take a deep breath; we can relax a tad bit now knowing that there is assistance available to these families. 

Let’s start with the most intriguing question: 

What Does the Research Convey about Sign Language with Children with Autism?

1. Benefits children with autism that lack functional speech: 

• Sign Language teaches children with autism how to request specific items, hold conversations, and express various verbal behaviors shown in Tincani’s studies. 
• Sign Language has been shown to increase verbalizations because areas of the brain involved in Sign Language and vocalizations are connected, which Pezzuoli et al. showed through brain activity measurements. 
• Children with autism tend to experience auditory deficits; therefore, sign language is helpful as it is a communication system that relies on visual information, which Tincani explained. 

2. Improves communication between parent and child: 

• Sign Language lowers the child’s frustration as they can express their needs to their parents and fewer temper tantrums occur, which Jantzen explained in a research paper. 
• Sign Language is crucial as parents can feel more confident in their ability to be responsive to their child and be sure that they accurately understand their child’s feelings, which Jantzen explained in a research paper. 

3. Increases a child’s ability to hold a conversation:

• Children with autism and other developmental disorders had more spontaneous speech events during unplanned conversations with Baby Sign Language, which was shown in Dunset et al.’s experiment. 
• Signing with children with autism still exhibited positive effects on speech production despite the developmental disorder’s severity, which was shown in Dunset et al.’s experiment.  

4. Acquire Social Knowledge:

• A positive association was observed as children with autism that had more sign language knowledge tended to have higher social competence, which was shown in Bonvillian and Blackburn’s correlational research. 
• Sign Language enhanced social competence and impacted other behaviors needed for successful communication, such as attention and motivation, which Seal and Boavillian explained in their research paper. 

   The vast amount of research on interventions and training programs for ASD is empowering because we are getting closer to finding methods that can improve these children’s development and help the families maintain high parent-child relationship quality. You will find many videos on my SignShine’s youtube channel, with holiday signs and other fun educational activities. 

We all know a family member, a neighbor, or a friend whose child is diagnosed with autism.  In honor of autism awareness month, it is essential to understand how ASD impacts aspects of development to have higher sensitivity and compassion towards those who experience this disorder. Get to know them, give a hand to the parent, and celebrate Autism Awareness Month.