Hi! I’m newly registered and want to pick your brains (if u don’t mind)

[Katellizzie]

Hi everyone, 

I have a one year old - well in the interest of being precise - a 15 month old GORGEOUS, and the most delightful little girl ,who happens to have Trisomy 21 . I decided to begin to learn sign language as babies with Down Syndrome take longer to learn how to speak, although they understand the same as any other baby at their age. As you can imagine , being able to understand what is being said  yet unable to communicate back can cause distress and therefore cause behaviour  problems. So I started to look into ‘free online courses for BSL’ . After quite a while I began to see that there wasn’t any!!! Yet there were many ASL courses for free ,online! 

Being a single parent I haven’t got much spare money , and what I do have is used for my little ‘turtle girl ‘ - as I call her- actually she is the ‘Queen of all the turtles!!! - “Queenie Turtle”. Anyway I’m sure you don’t wish to know my strange little pet names. The point I was hoping to make was how I felt - in order to be able to learn sign language as soon as possible - I had to choose to learn ASL! I am now a short way through the course and have come across this site with the £19.99 beginner course . I can’t seem to find the price of the higher level courses and feel that it isn’t in mine ,or ‘Queenies’ best interest ,for me to stop learning ASL in the hope that I can afford to get as far with learning BSL . 

Has anyone else been in the same situation?! Also does anyone know the cost of getting further in BSL study? 

I hope someone might be able to help me. I’m trying to do the best for my daughter and really want to get it right!!!

THANKS EVERYONE AND HELLO TO YOU ALL!!

 

katellizie xx

-and “Queenie Turtle”

hugs to you all 😍

[Cassie]

You may want to look in 'Makaton' which is a simpler version of sign langauge and usually used with babies/special needs individuals. There is a separate thread on this site for Makaton, but youtube is a good place to look for videos. I believe some Makaton courses may also be cheaper and shorter than BSL courses which can be a little pricey sometimes.

The Makaton Charity    https://www.makaton.org has info about courses and some resources too. Hope this helps