Learning Makaton

As Coraline has delays in her speech and, as we know this, we are doing Makaton with her. These signs don't teach speech; they are a bridge for communication when speech is delayed. We do the sign and say the word at the same time (visual and auditory). Coraline doesn’t do any signs back yet but she’s definitely gesturing.

Whilst typical children might say their first words between 10-18 months old, for children with Down's Syndrome it is usually between 2-3 years old. It is also an area we will work hard on with her with her speech therapist due to speech motor skills, temporary hearing loss from glue ear, and a less strong listening memory than visual memory.

I’ve had a bit of a block about learning Makaton. How to learn it? How to know and use more signs? How to just do it! It sounds simple; just learn it and do it! I did do a six week course at Coraline’s children’s centre when she was a year old.

Kev watched a brilliant video recently by Stephen Duneier about doing things incrementally and so we applied this to Makaton! Also, our neighbour Margaret was learning so much we thought we had better keep up! And of course we want to do it for Coraline. We decided a plan of doing ten minutes a night watching Mr. Tumble's Makaton videos (where he goes through a list of signs). So it doesn’t feel overwhelming and you remember the signs. Then we re-watch the same ten minutes the next couple of nights. Incremental learning and it feels achievable this way. The other night we learned the alphabet in Makaton.

We love this whole incremental idea now e.g. with the list of tasks you have around the house, we just choose one a day and do it, and then it feels achievable. And it’s easy to just focus and do one thing and feel a sense of achievement when you’ve done it. Instead of feeling you have to do everything all at once.

#downssyndromeawarenessmonth #makaton