Following the signs: Virginia Tech student nurtures learning bond with 2-year-old

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impact 1:30 Following the signs: Virginia Tech student nurtures learning bond with 2-year-old

By:

Andrew G Adkins

8 Feb 2024 615

Senior Margaret Buxton has always been fascinated by language. A student in the Department of Human Development and Family Science, Buxton is also passionate about early childhood education. This school year, she met a 2-year-old boy named Bennett, who is deaf and only able to hear with the aid of cochlear implants.

His parents want him to learn sign language so that he is capable of full communication when he isn’t wearing the implants, and so that he will feel more connected to others in the deaf community.

So, Buxton decided to learn American Sign Language herself, to best serve Bennett and future students who practice ASL.

Ben. It's about 2.5 and loves, I guess everything. 2.5 year olds love really into trains. Right now it's, we just, Yeah, I got to ride on a train. Okay. Very exciting. Yes. The center is a wonderful place to bring our child every single day and it's been a very rewarding experience. We see his learning and his language development, both verbally and assigning, improving. But Bennett am help me to help you her. I have always been fascinated with language. So the sign language just seemed fun for me to learn. And then I met Bennett and he uses sign language in the class. And I was like, this would be a great opportunity to learn sign language and then practice with Bennett, but learn his type of sign language and what he needed. We really, really want him to learn ASL and be immersed in that. Their willingness to learn it has just been really, really special, I think, and really, really neat. One reason that we love the center so much, we have a wide range of undergraduate students and they really want to go out in the field and work with young children and, or families. They get the opportunity to come into our center and work really under the mentor of our full time teachers. They get in the classroom experiences. Teachers learn from the students. The students learn from them. They all learn from the children.