Does your child or student struggle to speak?  
By Jill Hicks

It can take a lot of effort for our children to articulate clearly. Yet we know what an important ability speech is.  Speaking clearly enough to be understood allows our children to have social connections, to share their ideas and feelings, and increases their independence.  As both a mother of a child with Down syndrome and a speech-language pathologist, my desire is to give you the tools to help your child or student improve his/her ability to communicate effectively.  

Since our children have better visual memory than auditory memory they need a way to use their visual strength when learning a highly auditory skill....speech.  I would like to introduce you to a powerful tool designed to help people with Down syndrome make sense of speech.

Sign Sounds™ (SS) is a system of signs for speech sounds. Just as Sign Language teaches a sign for the whole word, Sign Sounds™ teaches a sign for each sound. Sign Sounds™ make sense because signs are based on how and where the sounds are made.  Users pair the visual sign (when watching you), and the tactile-kinesthetic movement of the sign (when they make it) with the speech sound and the mouth movement for the sound. Finally they have a way to understand the complexity of speech!  People with Down syndrome use Sign Sounds™ enthusiastically to help them get more of their speech sounds correct so they are better understood.  That is the ultimate metric of the success of Sign Sounds™. 
Please note:  Sign Sounds™ is also known as Phoneme Touch & Say™. 

To learn more about Sign Sounds™, or to purchase a Sign Sounds™ Program, please visit www.learninglanguagetogether.com .