GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM Parents Darryl and Desiree Hee took a little time following dinner to increase "signing" vocabulary last week with their 1-year-old son, Dustin.

Real baby talk

Sign language classes help toddlers
get through to their parents

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By Pat Gee
pgee@starbulletin.com

By the time toddlers reach the age of 2, they have good reason to be terrible. With little or no verbal skills, they often have a hard time letting mom and dad know what they want.

To avoid tantrums, Cheryl Kaster has taken it upon herself to teach babies from the age of 7 months to use simple words in sign language, like "milk," "eat" or "more," instead of vague gestures that parents can only guess at.

Kaster recently held the first of a series of sign language workshops for parents of babies with normal hearing. The classes are a community service program of Na Lima Aloha, a Christian ministry to the deaf community which she founded in 1999.

"I'm saving kids a year of frustration," in giving them the ability to communicate their needs until they learn to talk, usually between 1 to 2 years of age. That's when their fine motor skills, which enable them to talk, become more developed, she added.

An example of a common frustrating scenario, according to Kaster, occurs when a baby stops eating and the mother takes the food away. The baby starts fussing because what he really wants is water in between bites. Later, he's even more upset because he is now frustrated and hungry, Kaster explained.

SIGNING WORKSHOPS Cheryl Kaster's sign language workshops for parents of babies with normal hearing are scheduled from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday and May 9 at Kaimuki Community Park, and April 24 and May 29 at Kaimuki Christian Church. The fee for the workshop is $30 for up to two people, or $65 with the learning kit. Additional caregivers or siblings pay $10 each. For more information, call 348-1892 or 528-0818.

Kara England, a first-time mother of 9-month-old Morgan-star Mahealani, is thrilled that after three months of consistently signing "milk" whenever she presented the bottle, her daughter finally made her first sign.

"When she signed 'milk' on her own, I got all excited and said, 'Good!' and handed her her milk. They say there will be a moment of connection (when the baby understands) and you'll know it. It's a thrilling moment -- it is!" she said.

"It's just amazing how they pick it up. Now I know immediately what she wants. It's so cute. She can't verbalize, yet she knows what she wants at a very early age.

"Instead of being fussy, she's happy," England said.

"I told all of my friends, who are asking if they can borrow the video (that comes with a class learning kit). It takes lots of patience and practice. It's just like training a puppy," she added. Now her daughter knows the signs for "sleep" and "finish," and she intends to introduce one new word a month.

England first learned about the baby signing from a television program and reading about it. She took a class from Kaster when she was pregnant.

GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM Dustin explored the area near the garage with his dad outside their Kaimuki home. His older brother, Dezman, played nearby.

Darryl and Desiree Hee learned about baby signing while reading parenting books and then looked it up on the Internet because they wanted to use it with their 1-year-old son, Dustin. They bought Joseph Garcia's book "Sign with Your Baby," which is based on the American Sign Language system, and started practicing several months ago. Their first son, Dezman, 9, also got into the act to reinforce what Dustin was learning.

When they saw Kaster's announcement of workshops based on Garcia's book, Darryl said, "Wow, we gotta go!" They attended the March 27 class at Kaimuki Christian Church, where Dustin showed off his "milk" sign. The gesture involves squeezing fingers together as if milking a cow.

Desiree, who is still nursing Dustin, laughed and said, "That sign is a good one. It was the first one he did when he was 10 or 11 months old. It's really exciting once they start!"

Darryl was motivated to learn sign language because "There are so many things I want to tell him. I want to show him things when we go outside in the morning, like 'bird.' One day he said what sounded like 'dird,' and then he made the sign for bird. It's kinda neat. He's really good at 'airplane'; planes fly over our house all the time, and when he hears it, he makes the sign.

"And hopefully, if something hurts, he will be able to tell us, 'My mouth hurts,' or, 'My stomach hurts,'" Darryl added.