About
Create. Educate. Inspire.
The Signing Time Foundation is dedicated to making sign language fun and accessible to all children, creating a world in which all children can express themselves and be understood.
Today in the United States:
- There are approximately 547,194 children living with Autism. 27,000 more will be born this year.
- There are approximately 180,000 children living with cerebral palsy.
- There are approximately 102,591 children with Down syndrome. 5,125 more will be born this year.
- There are approximately 98,534 children with hearing loss. 4,922 more will be born this year.
- There are over 1 million children suffering from speech and language disorders.
- There are over 8 million pre-verbal infants and toddlers that are not old enough to speak, but
Whether using sign language with a hearing child who is a pre-verbal infant, a non-verbal child with disabilities or a child who wants to learn American Sign Language (ASL) as a second language, these are just a handful of the circumstances that can make verbal communication extremely difficult and in some cases impossible. Sign language may be the only way for many children with special needs to communicate, and the only way for the tens of millions of typically developing children to communicate with their peers with special needs. Sign language serves children as a diverse community, and all children can benefit from the social and educational advantages achieved through the inclusion of sign in their learning.
Lucy’s Inspiration
Friends of the Signing Time! series have come to know and love Rachel, Alex & Leah by inviting them into their homes through the Signing Time! videos and songs. Many people have also come to know and adore Leah’s little sister, Lucy who was born with Spina Bifida and Cerebral Palsy. Lucy’s little smile and zest for life is the inspiration behind the Signing Time! Foundation.Lucy, like other little children, loves to be around her peers and to do what they do best: play! However, because of her special physical needs, she often faces barriers when it comes to something as simple as “play.”
Lucy loves to swing. But when her family takes her to the park they notice that most parks are not very fun for her. There are no swings to support a child who cannot balance on their own, or who cannot hold on with both hands. Maneuvering a child in a wheelchair over railroad ties and through the playground’s wood chips or sand is very difficult – Lucy would never be able to approach the play area by herself. The Coleman’s quickly realized that these and other “barriers” were in the way of Lucy’s having fun at the park and playing with other children.
Dissolving “barriers” of all types and creating opportunities for all children to become friends is what the Signing Time! Foundation is all about.
Lucy and Rachel Coleman
Signing Time Story
The creation of Signing Time! was a labor of love, born out of the desire to teach children everywhere how to sign basic words in order to communicate. After all, this is precisely what sisters Rachel de Azevedo Coleman and Emilie de Azevedo Brown spent much of their time doing with their young children.
In December of 1996 Leah was born to Rachel and her husband Aaron. At the time, Rachel was writing music and performing with her band. Rachel and Aaron would take young Leah to band practices and concerts, and to their amazement, she was able to sleep in spite of the loud music. When she was fourteen months old, they discovered why: Leah was deaf. She never heard the music. She never heard her mom sing.
“When I realized my daughter was deaf,” Rachel admits, “I just couldn’t find a way to rationalize spending hours working on my music. My priorities changed. I put down my guitar and picked up sign language.” She and Aaron immediately started learning American Sign Language (ASL) so they could teach it to Leah.
The Coleman Family Rachel, Aaron, Lucy, and Leah
Leah age 3
Rachel was astonished to see that within six months, Leah’s sign language vocabulary far surpassed the vocabulary of hearing children her same age. Rachel explains, “While Leah’s little friends could only point at something they wanted, Leah could actually tell us.” Because she had learned to use sign language so early, it was not long before she could read written words, even though she was only two years old.
Emilie and her husband Derek also started teaching sign language to their infant son Alex, so that he would one day be able to communicate with his cousin Leah. Emilie was thrilled one morning when Alex, then only ten months old, stopped fussing, looked up at her, and made the sign for milk.
A few years later, Rachel had a second daughter. Lucy was born 8 weeks pre-mature, with spina bifida and cerebral palsy. Doctors worried that, due to her cerebral palsy, Lucy would never be able to communicate with her Deaf sister.
In the midst of all of this, Rachel shared an idea with her sister. She wanted to create a video for hearing children that would be captivating, entertaining, and would make sign language accessible to all children.
This idea was the spark behind the creation of their production company, Two Little Hands Productions. Despite many obstacles, including Emilie living in Virginia, Rachel residing in California and production taking place in Utah, Signing Time! Volume One: My First Signs was completed in May 2002.
Alex and Emilie Brown
Lucy Coleman