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The national TinyTalk baby signing business began in May 2003 when
the company was incorporated and the first group of baby signing teachers
were trained. I then
had
my second
baby, Lucy in June. (No - I wouldn’t have planned to have my
second baby and start a national baby signing business at the same
time!) Since then, TinyTalk
baby signing classes have grown from strength to strength with a
formidable team of trained baby signing teachers both delivering baby
signing classes across
the
country
as well as supporting hundreds and hundreds of parents and carers understand
their children better, helping their babies communicate before they
can talk.
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I
started TinyTalk after reading about many hearing babies, born
to parents where one was deaf and one hearing, being brought up bilingually,
through sign and speech. Time and time again these babies were showing
that they understood their parents’ messages first through sign.
They were also communicating first through baby signing. These
articles often concluded with words to the effect of: “Surely
there is benefit here for all hearing babies.” I could see with
my own experience and understanding how it could really work. I was
interested
in furthering
my studies in this area of language acquisition with a Masters. However
marriage and babies has put a stop to that for now!
I
started baby signing with Harry from 7 months, to his amusement and
my husband’s cynicism. However six weeks later, when Harry reminded
us, by baby signing, that he was aware that we had failed to give
him his morning milk and that he would like it now please (!), we were
both blown away. From ‘milk’, ‘food’ then ‘more’ came
quickly. We then expanded our baby signing repertoire to include ‘bath
time’, ‘book’, ‘bed’, ‘duck’, ‘fish’….
and on and on we progressed, with Harry’s understood vocabulary
growing steadily larger and larger. Friends urged me to
teach their children baby signing. I deliberated about teaching the
baby signing signs ‘dry’ on
their own, showing the parents and carers baby sign after baby sign.
I didn’t
think about it for too long: there was no way that the babies would
stand for it! I also wanted baby signing to be a lively session for
them. Music classes are universally popular with most parents and singing
well-known
nursery rhymes and action songs seemed the natural way to also teach
baby signing. Baby signing has always been a great way of having
fun with language. I therefore wrote a term’s scheme of work
that was 12 lesson plans, covering all the core baby signs which related
to home
environment
vocabulary as well as first speech sounds and words spoken. 
The
first baby signing classes started just after Easter 2002. The reaction
was incredible. The word that people kept using was ‘raved’.
One person that enjoyed my baby signing class would ‘rave’ to
their friends about it and would come back the next week with either
a couple
of other mums or maybe even her whole antenatal group!! Local press,
led to national press, which led to television interviews, including
the exciting one on ITV’s ‘This Morning’ (with Philip
and Fern!) Although it all seemed so brief and one of our children
cried (see the opening credits of the show to see Philip comforting
Toby!) the interest in baby signing was phenomenal. People enquired
after the Signing Pack, their nearest baby signing class, as well
as how they too could
teach
the baby signing classes. 
TinyTalk take the Birmingham Baby Show
by storm - with one of the most visited stands. 
