Why WeeHands Does What We Do

Kristin Buckler is a WeeHands Instructor in Kamloops, British Columbia and she has a background in early childhood education.  She recently shared this story with me and I just had to share:

When I began working with preschoolers that had special needs I worked primarily with one boy who had a speech delay. His mouth physically could not make the mouth shape to produce any words. He had many behaviour problems at home and in our school. I took a sign language course and began signing with him, almost instantly his behaviours at school stopped. 

My favorite memory of him was when we were reading a book. He pointed at a boat, I responded by signing BOAT. He pointed again and signed SAME. I didn't understand. He pointed again and then took me into the bathroom, pointed at the faucet and signed SAME. When I looked at the picture of the tugboat again I realized he was pointing at the faucet on the side of it.

Watching his frustration level decrease because he was able to communicate was amazing. He would still show behaviours when he couldn't express something through signs either because the person didn't understand signs or he didn't know the sign, but it decreased tremendously. Signing with him was one of my favorite experiences. We got to learn sign language together and I will never forget him.

How qualified is your baby sign language instructor?

It's April and this is my first post...and the flowers are coming up in our garden!  The site of those little buds each year make me so happy!

With the winter thaw, we're getting a flood of new application to teach with WeeHands and we're so impressed with all that apply.  From the beginning, in 2001, it's been important to me that all WeeHands Instructors have a strong background in American Sign Language (ASL) and in children's development.  My own background is in communicative disorders and I've seen first hand how knowledge of both language development and ASL vocabulary can empower parents.

I ask that our Instructors not only have a background in ASL (this may vary from a few adult ASL classes to be fully fluent in ASL) but also have knowledge of experience in children's development, in particular, language development.  Many of our Instructors are Teachers of the Deaf, ASL Interpreters and Speech-Language Pathologists...this is one educated group of people!

WeeHands also encourages our Instructors to continue to study these two topics: ASL and language development.  I can proudly say that we are the baby sign language company with the highest of expectations on our Instructors.  We've developed the following scale system for our Instructors to help parents identify how qualified their Instructor is and to encourage all our Instructors to continue their education:

	1-Star Level WeeHands Instructors have completed approved ASL courses at level 1 of the Vista Signing Naturally Series (or equivalent) & have successfully completed our WeeHands Instructors certification that focuses on language development & the use of sign language with children 0-3 years.
	2-Star Level WeeHands Instructors have completed approved ASL courses at level 2 of the Vista Signing Naturally Series (or equivalent) and have successfully completed our WeeHands Instructors certification that focuses, in detail, on language development and essential steps from 0-5 years.
	3-Star Level WeeHands Instructors have completed approved ASL courses at level 3 or higher of the Vista Signing Naturally Series (or equivalent) and have successfully completed our WeeHands Instructors certification that focuses on language, reading & literacy development with children 0-6 years.

How qualified is your baby sign language instructor?