SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — American Sign Language is becoming more popular with people with speech delays.
For 3-year-old Magnus, American Sign Language, or ASL, is one of the ways he communicates with his mom Anna.
“Magnus was born with Trisomy 21 or Down’s Syndrome, and it’s common with kids with Down’s Syndrome to have a speech delay. And so we did want him to have a way to communicate with us. And ASL was the route we took,” Anna Svennungsen said.
While Magnus can speak, ASL is his primary mode of communication.
“It alleviates a lot of frustration for him because when he doesn’t have the verbal words, he can still communicate with us and tell us what he wants, what he needs, what he wants to play with,” Svennungsen said.
For children like Magnus, the nonprofit ‘Fun & Friends’ hosts ASL classes for parents.
“So our ASL classes are paid for and hosted by SD Drop. We have a deaf instructor who we work with that meets with us every week to teach us and help us learn ASL for our children who are hard of hearing or are speech delayed,” Fun & Friends Vice President/Treasurer, Nadene Fishback said.
The class starts out with basics, and grows the parents’ vocabulary from there, so that they can bring it home to help teach their children.
“We talked about dinosaurs, very specific toys that kids enjoy using. We can do a song or a book, things that would really motivate children to start signing back to you. Because if you can get them started, usually they’ll take it from there,” Fishback said.
All in an effort to help keep people like Anna and Magnus connected for the years to come.
“I think he’s happier in the end because he can communicate with people. He’s highly social. He loves to interact with people. And so just the ease of being able to communicate and everybody deserves to communicate with each other and so if you can’t verbally speak a word, you can still communicate through ASL,” Svennungsen said.
