Isn't She Talking Yet? - Times Online - WBLG

Singing Hands - my new favourite thing

I was recently sent THE most brilliant singing and signing CDs and songbooks by Suzanne and Tracy of Singing Hands (above; you may have seen them on Something Special ). I was so taken by the concept and its execution, and by the fact that they were parents of children with special needs who'd done something incredibly positive with the information they were forced to learn, that I emailed them and asked them to write something about what they do, and how they came to do it, for the blog. As some of you may have noticed, I am evangelical about Makaton. Singing Hands is not only a brilliant way of learning some, but it's the most tremendous fun for little children - Nell absolutely loves her books and CDs, and it means she can join in nursery rhymes with aplomb at, er, nursery. I can't recommend Singing Hands highly enough. Their website is here  and there's also lots of detailed info right at the end of this article. An invaluable resource for parents, obviously, but also for speech and language therapists, SENCOs and so on. Anyway:

Hello!  We are Suzanne and Tracy of Singing Hands – we’d like to tell you about the songbooks and CDs that we have produced to help foster children’s early communication skills by introducing them to signing through songs and rhymes.

We are both parents of a child with special needs and began to learn Makaton when our children were a few months old.  As parents, it was then instinctive for us to sign and sing with our children but Singing Hands was only formally established when they were due to attend mainstream nursery in 2003.  Our goal was, and still is, to encourage communication between children with SEN and their peers by fostering an inclusive approach to language.  Our fear was that it would not be possible for our children be fully included in their setting if they could only communicate with their LSA (Learning Support Assistant).  It seemed obvious that the only way forward was to sign with all children to help achieve this goal.  We both felt that this could best be achieved through songs and stories – a natural opportunity to use a fantastic and engaging range of signs that all children could enjoy.

Our aim is to demonstrate how signs can be used in a fun, dynamic and practical way so that music time can become one of the favourite activities of the day.  Produced in conjunction with the Makaton Vocabulary Development Project (MVDP) each signed songbook contains 30 tried and tested songs that we have used in our baby signing classes, toddler groups and nursery and school sessions over the years.

Please take the time to sign this petition

which asks that testing for Group B Strep is made available to every pregnant woman in the UK at 35-37 weeks. We are one of the few developed nations not to do this. If a woman is found to be a carrier, she is given a dose of antibiotics, and that's that. If nobody bothers finding out - well, 700 newborn babies a year are affected, and of those 70 die. Those who survive can have serious, long-term difficulties - all of which could have been avoided. You can find out about Group B Strep here - apparently 30% of us carry it without knowing -  and please go here to sign the petition. It takes 30 seconds, tops. Thanks to Annie from my other blog for pointing me in this direction.