Language is it really a choice?

Jun 20, 20235 min read

Today I was reading George a book, we read a lot of books and usually I like to try and read the books without my voice and just sign so that I can practice my Auslan grammar and reading in general. This time stood out to me as George was following along and could show that he was understanding what I was signing to him.

George shows me frequently that he understands my signs and will follow directions although its phrases and words we use daily, so they have been repeated a lot. When reading a story, it's not quite the same as he doesn’t know what’s coming.

This showed me; by understanding what I was signing and him signing along with me that he has been learning Auslan subliminally and spontaneously. I believe he has also chosen the language he is most comfortable with at this stage in his life. He has shown me this as he wakes up in the morning and starts signing to me without the use of his voice, he also signs in his sleep, usually its "where milk?" again no voice.

He has also started showing us that he has an understanding of when what language may be the one to use with different people. I find this fascinating.

Auslan is an entirely different language to English as it has its own grammar and vocabulary. A child who grows up with Auslan and a spoken language is bilingual. If a person is to use Auslan in the same structure of English, it is known as signed English and not Auslan. I do a lot of signed English as I’m not there yet with my Auslan.

I also have a family who are not at that stage yet so trying to find a balance to keep everyone involved in conversations are harder than I thought it would be.

When we first found out about George's hearing loss our view was put a hearing aid on him and he will be fine as his loss was in just a single ear and mild although when we found out his loss is bilateral and progressive our biggest worry was language and communication. It wasn’t that he couldn’t or wouldn’t be oral it was a fear that we, as his parents wouldn’t be able to communicate with our child. - the first part of this sentence I dislike very much, it shows naivety.

While venturing into therapies we started to feel another mix of emotions and we decided we would learn Auslan so that he could still be a child and his years wouldn’t be those filled with stress and pressure to be oral, we will present both and he can decide. The future is also unknown, so we need to be prepared and prepare him.

The issue with our decision is that we don’t know Auslan, the culture or how to teach our infant a language we know nothing about let alone language at all as it's not something we have had to think about, all we knew was that for George to have an equal chance at both languages we need help, A LOT of help.

Babies learn language by association and simultaneously, something we may not typically think about, the early and pre-production of language.

This is a massive challenge for us as babies can make and learn all languages at birth although they start to forget/remove the language they are not exposed to which will form their primary language and for bilingual children the two languages they will become fluent in.

Due to the family learning we don’t have all the language he needs in sign to become fluent so if he isn’t exposed to it, he will not hit age-appropriate milestones.

We can give George the exposure to oral language although we must seek help from the Deaf community to allow George to have access to rich sign language and subliminal language, another part of language I had never thought about until our teacher explained to me. We absolutely cannot give that in sign to a baby who is at a critical age of learning.

I purposely started to explore ways of being able to give this to George as even though we have our teacher and take short courses he doesn’t get the exposure he needs to subliminal language; we are lucky enough to have the support in this and our teacher, again helped us to achieve this. George now has incredible in-home educator who spends around 20 hours a week with him and takes him into the community to explore and learn.

Her role isn’t to teach George Auslan its to just be with him in her role as an in-home educator although as she knows sign language that is what she uses in my home, even when talking with another family member she will sign so that George is exposed to the Subliminal language. Wonderful

She doesn’t just know Auslan she is amazing with children, specifically mine; I truly believe everything happens for a reason as how could we be so lucky to get a fantastic deaf teacher with such high education and qualifications and then another teacher who knows Auslan and qualified in early childhood. It can't be coincidence.

Stepping into an unfamiliar community and culture is daunting and scary as no one wants to feel wrong or silly. It’s taken what feels like forever to feel somewhat confident in what I have learnt but this is the next step on our journey.

A play group was mentioned to me, and I was told it was mainly Deaf adults and hearing children that attend, and I left thinking “yes, that is the group for me” bilingual children for George to play with and people who I can learn from. Again, I was told about this at I time I felt maybe I was ready for more. Again, coincidence?

Don’t get me wrong the idea of this terrified me and the whole way driving there I was feeling butterflies and believed I was sick by the time I parked the car, but I know I have enough vocab to be able to communicate with adults, its basic and I finger spell a lot although I can do it. WOW everyone is so welcoming and patient with me, what was I worried about? I do feel my signing is probably like a drunk person trying to speak, sloppy and weak hands/movements, maybe just lacking in confidence I’m not sure. I have only been told positive though and never once felt like I was bothering anyone or a nuisance. I am cautious of this though as people don’t want to teach all the time, so I choose our social events with a lot of thought which are mainly events ran by WAFDC (WA Foundation for Deaf Children) as I have made a good connection with the coordinators and feel very comfortable, it's also for deaf/HOH children and their families so it’s perfect although this is a brand new step for us.

I still love being in my learning environments, they’re my favourite days of the week. I’m comfortable, it’s the place for questions and I don’t have the pressure I put on myself in the social ones. This is a good example of the difference between the learning I need, and the learning George needs, intentional vs spontaneous and subliminal.

Language starts to become intentional learning just before adolescence with the most crucial years being the first 5.

So far George is age appropriate for sign language which will be interesting to see if he continues to show strength in Auslan as he grows. We haven’t got any assessments on oral language as of yet, so we are unsure where he is with that although its ok as strength in one language is amazing.