American Sign Language

With the attention the Pepsi commercial "Bob's House" drew during the superbowl to deaf culture, and the nature of my job right now, I've been thinking about American Sign Lanuage a lot. (Yes I did know that deaf joke before the commercial, it's a really common one)
My job right now is to work one on one with a student who is deaf in special ed at an elementary school. I am not an interpreter, but we communicate in ASL. He is behind grade level, so I do a lot of teaching and very little interpreting for other teachers.
I've been surprised at how much sign I've been able to learn in such a little time that I've been working with my student. I knew just enough to get by when I started, and it's been expanding so fast.
A lot of this, especially what I started with, I owe to Signing Time! videos which I found in the library last summer. I now own a couple of them, tivo them every week (click here for a link to the TV Schedule), and watch Rachel's blog and forums regularly. I think they are fun videos, and will be great for helping me to have a signing family.
Another book that I found at the library is Baby Talk: A Guide to Using Basic Sign Language to Communicate with Your Baby by Monica Beyer. I think this is a great introductory book to using Sign Language with babies, and especially a good one to show to the skeptics of signing in your life. It's cute, and concise. Although I believe it would help to have some supplementary vocabulary builders to go along with it, like Signing Time! or the Michigan State ASL browser website. It depends on how much you want to do, and how enthusiastic your toddler is to sign.
Although I don't have a baby of my own yet, signing is definitely in the plans for my family. I am so glad I've had this year to practice and learn with my student at school.
The other thing I've loved is seeing how signing has benefitted some children with disabilities, especially some with Downs Syndrome or Autism. Somehow signing seems to bridge the gap that some of them have with spoken language.