Elisa Nuevo Vallin: Why I’m going to teach my baby sign language

Hello everyone! As many of you already know, I’m pregnant and it’s less than a week to go to my due date… Gosh! When you type it, it becomes more real and scary! Just joking…

As many of you already know, I’m de Digital Marketing Specialist at Deaf Umbrella and I’m a CODA; I’m a hearing person and my both parents are profoundly deaf, but not from birth.

Spanish Sign Language is my first language (mother tongue), spoken Spanish is my second language, and after almost 3 years living in the UK, I’m still trying to establish English as my third language… lol…

When you grow up learning to communicate before being able to pronounce a word, everything seems natural and quite normal.

As hearing parents to be of a baby, we could think that sign language is not necessary for our child, but it is important for her to be able to communicate with her future grandparents (yes, it’s a girl!).

So, following my own experience, and researching a lot of information and some very interesting reading, I’m perfectly aware of the importance of teaching sign language to my baby.  It will give her many advantages, which will be enjoyed both by her and her deaf family members – for us all in fact.

Learning sign language from an early age has many benefits, including:

• Speeding up speech development
• Earlier reading and larger reading vocabulary
• Improves child-parent connection
• Enables children to communicate effectively lowering frustration levels by giving them a means to express themselves before they know how to talk
• Bilingualism in any languages is a great booster for the brain!

These are just a few examples – there are many more.

As you can see there are many reasons to use signs and finger spelling, including safety, as the baby will be able to communicate vital information, such as if it’s hurt or hungry.

We can’t forget the psychological benefits, such as improved self-confidence, while other babies cry to get what they want, signing babies learn how to communicate with words and simple phrases.

By teaching sign language from childhood I will enrich and enhance my baby’s cognitive processes, helping her to have creative thinking and enriching her problem-solver skills.

One of the big mistakes is to think that it will interfere with learning to talk.

Learning Sign language alongside speech has proven to speed up the development of spoken communication abilities.

So, I’m definitely committed to teaching my baby sign language from the very begging, because I love sign language, because of my deaf parents, because of the great benefits she will get (as well as all her new family) and because I will always support deaf culture and sign language.

Elisa was born and grew up in Santander, Spain until she moved to London in 2016. She is a CODA and has a website and fanpage on Facebook where she uploads videos in Spanish Sign Language about her trips, recipes, culture, and the Deaf Community. She works for Deaf Umbrella as their Digital Campaigner.