From: The Creswell Chronicle , Wednesday, December 26, 2001

Local Mom Writes and Produces Baby Sign Video
By Alana Listoe

     Kathy Faber, 34, is currently working on her second Baby See 'N Sign video.

     Faber's first video was shot in Creswell in numerous areas and was completed in June of 2001.  Her follow up video is scheduled to come out sometime next year.

     "I'm hopeful that it will come out by the summer," Faber said.

     Baby See 'N Sign teaches American Sign Language to parents and babies using three-dimensional images.  It focuses in seven categories such as food, toys, clothes and animals.

     Parents can begin to sign with their babies as early as six or seven months.  "any sooner than that isn't realistic," she said. "They don't have their motor skills down and by six or seven months they can understand that heir hands say something."

     Faber believes that babies can communicate physically before they can verbally.  Using sign language reduces the frustration for parents and children, she says.

     Faber says that signing does not hinder speaking, but actually helps to accelerate verbal communication.  She also says parents should say the word out loud as it is signed.

     "Vocabulary immerses baby in written language, bathing them in letters and words," Faber said.

     Faber grew up in Ohio and attended the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University.

     She became a mom in 1999 and she knew her baby boy could communicate using sign before he could speak verbally.  "Signing is a vehicle he could use to express himself," she said.  Faber began teaching her son Nicholas at seven months and he signed back to her at ten and a half months.  "Parents must be patient and the key to successfully signing is repetition," Faber said.  "My advice is to stick with one to two signs at first."  She believes Nicholas talks as well as he does now at age 2 as a result of signing with him.

     Faber didn't work on the video alone-she had help from Johanna Larson-Muhr, an instructor of American Sign Language at the University of Oregon.  Larson-Muhr is the sign instructor on the video.

     Faber and husband Eric have been married since 1993.  They have two children, Nicholas and Daphne and one on the way.  Nicholas and Daphne both used signing before the age of one.

Back to "In the News"