In the News

'Signing' for babies featured

HEREABOUTS
Diana Blowers
For the Dayton Daily News
Thursday, January 23, 2003

Few things are more frustrating for a parent than having an upset child who can't explain what is wrong because they aren't talking yet.

Kathy Kronz Faber, a former Beavercreek resident, has produced a video that could help foster nonverbal communication between infants and their parents.

The program, Baby See 'N Sign, is featured in the February issue of Parenting magazine.

The video, which teaches American Sign Language to parents and babies, is a winner of one of the magazine's Best Videos of the Year Awards 2002, in the birth to 18 months category.

"I think it's really quite an accomplishment for her to be one of the top 10 in a magazine. I'm sure that they've reviewed thousands," said her mother, Laura Kronz of Beavercreek.

Faber is a 1985 graduate of Beavercreek High School and earned a journalism degree from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University.

She first tried to learn American Sign Language in elementary school when her sister, Elizabeth "Lizzy" Kronz, who has Down syndrome, was being introduced to it.

Kathy and the rest of her family found it difficult to learn sign language from the crude drawings and graphics that they were presented.

As an adult, Faber became aware of research that indicated that infants could learn sign language and communicate before they could speak. She wished that her sister could have learned sign language earlier.

In 1999, when Faber and her husband, Eric, had their first son, Nicholas, Faber decided she wanted to be able to communicate with him before he could talk. She taught him to use sign language by the time he was 10 months old.

Faber, who lives on a farm near Eugene, Ore., and now has three children, created the video with the help of Johanna Larson-Muhr, an instructor of American Sign Language at the University of Oregon.

The 45-minute video, which costs $15, features clips of babies in action, such as taking a bath, blended with low-key footage of an American Sign Language instructor signing and then saying such words as "diaper," "shirt" and "shoes."

The video also covers food, toys and animals, demonstrating more than 60 American sign language signs that relate specifically to babies.

Baby See 'N Sign Volume 2, expected to be released this spring, will include additional "everyday" words, many that have been requested by users of the first volume, including a manners category.

For more information or to order a video, visit Faber's Web site at www.babyseensign.com.

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