Home Origins of Baby Signing Benefits of Baby Signing Why Auslan Biography Testimonials Course Format & Content Session Times Booking a place Recommended Reading Books Available Photos Contact Us

Biography         My name is Debbie Bundock. I was born in the UK and migrated to Western Australia in June 2006 with my husband, Mark and two boys, Owain (4) and Rory (2). I trained as a teacher when I left school and taught pupils aged from 4 – 13 for nearly 20 years before taking extended maternity leave after the birth of my second son. I first came into contact with baby signing when a friend suggested I take Rory to a class one of her friends was running. After just one or two sessions I was hooked, the benefits seemed so obvious to me. Owain had to attend the classes with us and he loved the signing just as much as I did. (He also picked up the signs much quicker!!) Rory was not one of the fastest babies in the group to sign; in fact he was the slowest. He watched me signing intently and clearly understood what I meant, but had no interest in making the gestures himself. It took 7 weeks before he made his first sign ‘milk’ and then the flood gates opened, the penny had finally dropped and he realised that if he made the sign he would be given what he wanted. He then moved on, very quickly, to signing the things he was seeing – sharing his experiences with me, which was incredible. I decided quite early on in the course that this was something I wanted to pass on to other parents. There are so many benefits and it is such a wonderful feeling to be able to communicate clearly with a baby as young as 8 months. Both of my boys are now fluent speakers and Rory’s carers at Day Care often comment on how advanced his speech is. We still sign on a regular basis, as a family however, and the boys are as keen as I am to learn new signs. Signing is not a skill you need to drop once speech has developed, there are many benefits to being able to sign and Auslan is a complex and beautiful language.