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Getting Started with Children’s Key Word Sign
Supporting your child’s communication journey can feel overwhelming, especially if they are having communication difficulties. Key Word Sign (KWS) is a practical and powerful tool to enhance your child’s language development by pairing key words of a sentence with simple signs (kindly borrowed from Auslan). This guide will walk you through how to start incorporating KWS into your daily life.
What is Key Word Sign?
Key Word Sign (KWS) involves using simple signs (kindly borrowed from Auslan) for the key words in a sentence while you speak.
Rather than replacing spoken language, KWS is designed to complement it by adding a visual cue that can help your child understand and process language more effectively.
For children with communication difficulties, pairing signs with speech provides an extra layer of support, making it easier for them to grasp meanings, follow conversations, and express their needs. It creates a bridge to spoken language, allowing your child to engage more confidently in communication.
For more detailed information about What is Key Word Sign, click here.
Why Use Key Word Sign?
KWS can be a game changer for children with communication difficulties and language delays for several reasons:
- It reduces frustration: When a child struggles to find the right words, it can lead to frustration and communication breakdowns. Key Word Sign gives your child another way to express themselves, empowering them to communicate their needs, feelings, and thoughts—even when speech isn’t fully developed yet.
- It enhances comprehension: By pairing a visual sign with spoken words, KWS helps strengthen your child’s understanding of language. Seeing and hearing the key words together makes it easier for them to grasp meanings and follow conversations, which is especially beneficial for children who may need additional support in processing verbal language.
- It supports speech development: Research has shown that many children who start using signs eventually experience improvements in their speech. Signs act as a stepping stone, encouraging spoken language development while reducing the pressure on the child to rely solely on speech in the early stages.
For more information on the benefits for parents please click here for benefits within early learning services please click here.
How to Sign: Key Techniques
When signing, it’s important to remember these basics:
- Dominant Hand: Your dominant hand (the hand you write with) is usually the hand that will do most of the signing. If a sign uses just one hand, use your dominant hand. If both hands are involved and one is static, it is your dominant hand is the one that moves, while your non-dominant hand stays still or acts as a base.
- Non-Dominant Hand: This hand can either act simultaneously with the dominant hand or it often serves as a support in two-handed signs. For example, in the sign for drawing, your non-dominant hand acts as the paper, while your dominant hand mimics the pencil drawing on the paper.
- Facial Expression: Use appropriate facial expressions to convey emotion or emphasis, which can help clarify meaning.
- Positioning: Signs are often made in the signing environment on your body or the signing environment just round your body. However when you are first showing a child a sign you may displace the sign so that is clearly in the child’s field of vision.
- Keep it Simple: Don’t worry about signing every word. Focus on the key words that convey the main message, as these are easier for your child to pick up and start using.
- Remember to always talk: As this is key word sign it is absolutely essential to talk and only sign the key words as we are always encouraging the child to understand what we are saying and encouraging speech at the same time.
- Concrete object: If the sign you are showing is connected to an object such as a toy, ensure that you show the child the toy before you do the sign to show how the sign, object and word are linked to support comprehension.
Getting Started with Key Word Sign: The Basics
Start with 10-12 Core Key Word Signs
When beginning Key Word Sign with your child, it’s best to start with just 10-12 core signs—basic words like help, eat, drink, more, finish and stop. Here’s why starting small works best:
- Avoid Overwhelm: A few key signs make learning manageable for you and your child, ensuring consistency and reducing frustration.
- Build Confidence: Mastering a small set of signs gives your child a sense of achievement, making them more eager to continue learning.
- Meet Immediate Needs: Core signs focus on essential, everyday words that allow your child to communicate their basic needs effectively.
- Flexible Usage: These signs apply to many situations—more works at meals, playtime, and during activities—giving your child plenty of practice opportunities.
- Foundation for Growth: Starting small sets a solid foundation for expanding their vocabulary as they become more comfortable with signing.
Check out our free helpful sign poster—click here for a guide to help you get started!
Incorporate Key Word Signs into Daily Routine
To make Key Word Signing (KWS) a natural part of your child’s life, use signs during everyday activities. For example:
- Meal Times: When offering a drink, say “Do you want a drink?” and sign drink. This helps your child connect the sign with the action.
- Bath Time: Sign wash while washing their hands or play with bath toys to reinforce these signs during routine activities.
- Playtime: Use signs like more or help as you play with toys, making signing a fun part of their play.
By consistently incorporating signs into daily routines, you create plenty of opportunities for practice and make signing a regular, natural part of communication.
Please note we do a number of symbol and key word sign communication boards for meal and playtime to help get you started, please click here to view our communication boards.
Incorporate Key Word Signs into Songs and Nursery Rhymes
Songs are a fun and effective way to teach Key Word Sign because they are repetitive and often include high-frequency words. Nursery rhymes are especially great for this, as their catchy tunes and repetitive nature help reinforce both the signs and their meanings.
By incorporating songs into your routine, your child will enjoy learning signs while benefiting from the rhythm and repetition. For a great start, check out our Nursery Rhyme Key Word Sign Book, which offers a collection of engaging rhymes and signs to help make learning fun and memorable.
Incorporate Key Word Signs into Story Books
Incorporating signs into storybooks is a fantastic way to engage your child and reinforce their sign vocabulary. While reading familiar books like Where is the Green Sheep?, focus on signing core words such as where, see, more, or go. These versatile words are useful across many different contexts beyond the story, making them valuable for everyday communication.
Research shows that signing during storytime leads to greater use of signing by both parents and children, making it an effective strategy for language development. Storybooks provide a fun, relaxed way to introduce and practice signs, turning reading into a valuable learning opportunity.
For extra support, you can explore our Story Books with Key Word Signs to help expand your child’s sign vocabulary as you read together.
The Importance of Visual Reminders
Visual reminders/ resources, such as key word sign posters and lanyard cards, are incredibly helpful when starting with Key Word Sign. They provide a clear and consistent reference for both you and your child, making it easier to remember and practice key signs regularly.
Having visual aids in your environment helps reinforce the signs, ensuring that they are seen frequently and become a natural part of daily routines. This constant visual cue supports your child’s learning by linking the signs with their meanings, which can accelerate their understanding and use of the signs. Overall, visual reminders make the process of learning and using Key Word Sign more manageable and effective.
Please check out our resources and see which is the most relevant for you and your child. Please note you may be able to use your NDIS funding for our resources, for more information please click here.
Free Resources
As you’re getting started with Key Word Sign, we created our Free Resource Page to support you every step of the way. We’ve curated a range of engaging, easy-to-use tools to help you seamlessly integrate signing into your child’s daily routine. From catchy songs that make learning fun, to free posters that serve as helpful visual reminders, our resources are designed to make key word signing simple and enjoyable.
You’ll also find links to businesses we partner with, offering essential tools like communication boards and nursery rhyme songs to further support your child’s language development. Plus, don’t forget to explore our free narrated storybook that incorporates Key Word Sign, helping to turn storytime into an interactive learning experience.
These resources are perfect for enhancing your child’s understanding of signs while keeping things fun and engaging. Head over to our Free Resource Page and discover more ways to get started with Key Word Sign!
Be Patient
Be Patient—It’s a Learning Process!
Introducing Key Word Signing to your child is a rewarding journey, but it requires time and patience. It’s normal for there to be a delay between when you begin signing and when your child starts using signs. Just like learning to speak, it can take several weeks or even months for your child to fully grasp the concept. During this time, your child is absorbing the information, observing you, and building connections between signs, words, and their meanings.
Patience is essential. Even if your child isn’t signing back right away, they are still learning. Focus on small signs of progress, such as recognising a sign or showing understanding. Consistency is key—using signs regularly during routines like mealtimes, play, and bath time reinforces their learning and helps them feel more confident.
Celebrate each small victory, whether it’s their first sign or even an attempt at a sign. Every step forward is a sign of progress. Remember, your efforts are laying the foundation for your child’s communication skills, both for signing and speech development, so stay positive and patient. The results will come in time!
Next Steps: Adding More Core and Fringe Signs
Once you and your child is comfortable with the initial set of key word signs, it’s time to broaden their vocabulary! Expanding their sign repertoire is essential for supporting their communication development. Here’s how to continue building their key word signing skills:
Core Words
For children that have communication difficulties it is important to start learning and teaching signs for core words.
Core words and key word signs are fundamental because they represent versatile and frequently used words across a variety of situations. It is estimated that these 200 core words are spoken about 80% of the time!
These signs include words like want, go, help, stop, more, and play. Core signs are crucial for effective communication because they are applicable in numerous contexts, whether at home, during play, or in other activities.
By mastering these core signs, your child gains the ability to express basic needs and wants, which forms the foundation of their communication skills. The use of core signs helps streamline interactions and ensures that your child can engage in a wide range of conversations, making them a powerful building block for more advanced communication.
We provide core words posters and flashcards with video tutorials to help master these core words.
Fringe Words
Fringe words and key word signs, in contrast, are more specific and tailored to individual interests, environments, or particular topics.
They include words related to specific activities, objects, or people that might not be used as frequently but are still important for personalised communication. For example, these could be signs for particular toys, places, or events that are relevant to your child’s life.
When choosing fringe signs for your child, consider their unique preferences and daily experiences. For instance, if your child loves playing with cars, signing car becomes highly relevant. If they frequently visit their grandparents, incorporating the sign for grandma and grandad can help them express these important relationships. These signs make communication more engaging and directly connected to their personal world, fostering a deeper connection and understanding.
Importance of Core and Fringe Signs
Both core and fringe signs play crucial roles in supporting your child’s communication development. Core signs provide the basic vocabulary needed for a wide range of interactions, while fringe signs add specificity and personal relevance. Core signs form the foundation of everyday communication, enabling your child to handle common situations and requests. Fringe signs build upon this foundation, allowing your child to express themselves more fully and engage with their environment in a way that reflects their unique interests and routines.
Communication Functions
The table below shows examples of how you can model core words and combine them with fringe words to support various communication functions. This approach helps your child learn to express themselves more effectively and naturally in different situations.
| Communication Function | Core Words | Core + Fringe Words |
|---|---|---|
| Request | want, give, different | I want a different Ball |
| Protest | no, stop | Stop the music |
| Comment | Look, see | I see the cat |
| Direct | Go, put | Put the blocks in the box |
| Ask Questions | When, Where, Why, How, Who? | Where is the dog? |
| Give Opinions | Like, good, bad, different | I like ice cream |
| Share news | Go, see, ate | I’m going to the park |
| Start a conversation | What, like, go | What are you doing? |
This table was inspired by Assistiveware Communication Functions article. To go to the Assistiveware website please click here.
We provide a number of communication boards that offer a number of core and fringe words for different topics including play and routine. To check out our communication boards click here.
Tips for Adding Key Word Signs
As you introduce new key word signs, try not to overwhelm yourself or your child. It’s often more effective to add one or two signs at a time rather than trying to cover many words all at once. Focus on what you can comfortably manage and gradually expand your child’s vocabulary. It may be worth creating a sign vocabulary with all the signs a child is likely to need to express themselves and rank them in order of importance of the child’s needs and interests.
Remember, it’s not about offering as many words as possible but about integrating key word signs in a way that feels manageable and natural. By pacing yourself and choosing signs that fit well into your child’s daily life, you’ll create a more effective and enjoyable learning experience for both you and your child, rather than being overwhelmed and being put off.
In the next section, we provide you with practical tips and strategies to put these core and fringe signs into action, enhancing your child’s communication skills through everyday interactions.
Supporting Language Development with Key Word Sign
For children with speech and language difficulties, providing meaningful support is crucial to their development. When combined with Key Word Sign (KWS), the PORES natural strategies—become powerful tools for enhancing both language and sign development. These strategies are crafted to seamlessly integrate into your everyday interactions, ensuring that your child is exposed to rich, relevant language in engaging and playful ways.
Incorporating these techniques into child-led play is particularly important. According to the Hanen Centre, “the child that leads gets the language they need.” By focusing on your child’s interests and activities, you create a more natural and motivating environment for learning. Child-led play provides opportunities to model language and signs in contexts that are meaningful to your child, making the learning process both enjoyable and effective.
By embedding PORES strategies into daily routines, you’re not only fostering spoken language but also encouraging the use of key word signs, making communication more accessible and effective. Whether during playtime, mealtime, or other activities, these strategies offer chances to model language and signs in a way that feels effortless yet impactful. This approach helps build a strong foundation for both speech and signing, supporting your child’s overall communication development in a positive and engaging manner.
Parallel Talk
Parallel Talk involves describing what your child is doing as they do it, using both language and signs. This approach provides immediate, relevant vocabulary and signs, helping children learn by connecting their actions to words.
Why It Works
Parallel Talk effectively bridges the gap between actions and language. By hearing and seeing the words and signs related to their activities, children can better understand and remember them. This dual exposure supports faster learning and reinforces the connection between what they’re doing and the language used to describe it.
Example
At the Beginning: When introducing Key Word Sign, focus on only adding one or two signs per sentence with a focus on core words. For instance, if your child is playing with a toy car, you might say, “Push!” while signing push. This helps them learn the sign in a clear, straightforward context.
As You Progress: As you and your child become more comfortable with signing, expand to include more words and signs. While your child is pushing the car, you could say, “You’re pushing the car. Push car!” and sign you, push, and car. This approach integrates multiple signs and helps your child understand how they work together to describe the action and the object, enhancing their use of both language and signs.
Open Ended Questions
Open-Ended Questions encourage your child to provide more detailed responses, allowing them to use both language and signs to express their thoughts and feelings. These questions are designed to prompt more than just a yes or no answer, fostering deeper interaction and language practice.
How to Use Open-Ended Questions
To make a question open-ended, use words that require more than a simple affirmation or negation. Here are some key words and phrases that turn questions into open-ended ones:
- What: “What do you see?” (Encourages a description of the object)
- How: “How do you want to play with this?” (Prompts an explanation of their actions or preferences)
- Why: “Why do you like this toy?” (Invites them to explain their feelings or choices)
- Tell me about: “Tell me about your favorite part of the story.” (Encourages them to describe and elaborate)
Why It Works
Open-ended questions are effective because they encourage your child to think critically and articulate more complex responses. By inviting them to elaborate, these questions help your child to think in or practice with a wider range of signs and words, leading to richer language development and more expressive communication.
Example
Instead of asking, “Do you like this toy?” which might only elicit a yes or no answer, try asking, “What do you like about this toy?” and sign what and like point to object or sign the toy.
This approach opens the door for your child to provide a more detailed response, such as describing their favorite features of the toy or explaining why they enjoy it. By modelling the signs and incorporating them into the question, you help your child connect the signs with their meanings, making the learning process more engaging and effective.
Recast
Recasting involves repeating what your child has said or signed, but in a more accurate form. This technique helps model correct language and sign usage in a supportive manner.
Why It Works
Recasting is effective because it provides gentle correction by showing your child the accurate form of their communication. Instead of saying, “No, that’s not right,” recasting allows you to model the correct language or signs based on their attempt. This method helps your child learn the proper usage of signs and words in a positive context, reinforcing their learning without negative feedback.
How It Works
Recasting can address both approximations and language/sign order corrections.
- Approximation Corrections: If your child uses a sign but executed wrong (ie incorrect handshake), recasting involves modelling the correct sign back to the child. This helps them learn the precise gesture or word they need to use.
- Language/Sign Order Corrections: If the order of signs or words is incorrect, recasting models the correct sequence. This helps your child understand how to structure their communication in a more correct form.
Example
If your child says or does the key word signs for “car big want” when they mean “I want the big car”, you can recast by saying, “You want the big car!” and signing want, big, and car in the correct order. This approach not only corrects the sign usage but also demonstrates the proper order of words and signs in the sentence. By providing this accurate model, you help your child learn both the correct signs and the appropriate way to use them in context.
Expansion
Expansion involves adding extra information and key word signs to what your child has said or signed. This technique helps to enrich their communication by providing additional context and detail, helping them to build more complex ideas and sentences.
Why It Works
Expansion is effective because it extends your child’s communication attempts, introducing them to more sophisticated key word sign and language structures. By providing a richer example of how to use signs and words in context, you help your child learn how to express more detailed and complex ideas. This not only supports their understanding and use of new vocabulary but also reinforces the signs they already know, enhancing both their spoken and sign language skills.
How It Works
Expansion involves building upon your child’s initial communication in a way that adds meaningful detail:
- Adding Detail: If your child uses a basic sign or phrase, you can add more detail to provide additional context. This helps them see how to use signs and words in various ways.
- Modeling Complex Sentences: By expanding on their communication, you model more complex sentence structures and vocabulary. This guides your child in learning how to create more detailed and accurate expressions.
Example
If your child signs more while playing with blocks, you might expand by saying, “You want more blocks? Here are more blocks,” and sign want, more and potentially blocks. This not only acknowledges their request but also adds extra information by specifying want and blocks and provides additional context. By introducing new vocabulary and reinforcing the sign for more, you help your child learn how to build more complex ideas and sentences, supporting their overall language development.
Self Talk
Self Talk involves narrating your actions and the environment around you as you go about your daily activities, using both speech and sign. This method helps to model language and sign usage in real-world contexts, making it easier for your child to understand and connect words with actions.
Why It Works
Self Talk is effective because it provides your child with continuous exposure to language and key word signs within everyday situations. By verbalising and signing your actions, you help your child see how words and signs are used naturally in context. This exposure aids in building their understanding of language and sign usage, making it more relevant and meaningful.
How It Works
Self Talk is useful in various situations, including those where you are not directly interacting with your child:
- Narrating Actions: When you describe what you are doing, you model both the vocabulary and the corresponding signs in a natural setting. This helps your child associate the signs with specific actions and objects.
- Building Context: By using Self Talk during routine activities, such as cooking or cleaning, you provide your child with constant examples of how language and signs are used in everyday life. This helps them learn the practical application of signs and words.
Example
If you are preparing dinner and getting items out of the fridge, you might say, “I’m taking out the milk” while signing out and milk. Even though you are not directly interacting with your child at that moment, you are still providing them with valuable exposure to the language and key word signs associated with your actions. This helps them understand and connect the signs with the objects and actions, making it easier for them to learn and use the signs themselves.
Consistent Language Exposure
These strategies work because they integrate language (both spoken and signed) seamlessly into your child’s everyday environment. By consistently pairing signs with speech throughout daily routines, you create a rich language environment that supports learning in a natural and engaging way. This constant exposure may help your child connect signs with their meanings and uses, facilitating a deeper understanding of both the signs and the associated vocabulary. As a result, they gain multiple opportunities to practice and reinforce their communication skills, which may accelerate their overall language development. By making language a regular part of their day, you provide a supportive foundation that encourages both verbal and non-verbal communication growth.
You can find useful resources, such as communication boards, flashcards, and posters to help you and your child practice new signs and keep communication fun and engaging.
Celebrate Every Step
Every sign your child learns and uses represents a significant achievement. Key Word Sign is a powerful tool designed to enhance communication, reduce frustration, and build your child’s confidence in expressing themselves. Remember, progress in signing can be gradual, and every small victory is an important step forward.
By incorporating Key Word Sign into your daily routines and play, you create a supportive environment where your child can thrive. Keep the experience enjoyable and child-led, celebrating each milestone along the way.
If you need additional support or have questions, feel free to contact us. We’re here to help you every step of the way. Explore our training pages and shop for more resources, and don’t hesitate to reach out for personalised guidance to ensure you and your child make the most of Key Word Sign.