Grateful to be back, Grateful to all who Helped in Chicago/Mich.

Traveling often expands time - I feel I've been gone for a month.

Thank you, Debra, for your comment, insights and information. I am glad you brought up bonding. Loving one's child, seeing the child's needs naturally includes communication in the easiest and most natural ways. Visual communication for visual babies makes sense and encourages the natural bonding. Coincidentally, I met with a cognitive science lab of Susan Goldin-Meadow, who has done research answering your question about language acquisition relating to early visual input. She and her lab have shown in many studies that deaf babies who have gesture (not signing) do better at learning language,even with a late start, than those who have no home-signing (less sophisticated signing -gestures).

And thank you, Debra, for the point about bilingualism. Sign from the cradle, when it is easy and natural for a visual baby, then add French or English. How rich we all would be if we had all of your languages and windows into different cultures.
The more signing is truly accepted as equal, then the easier it will be for parents and families to learn to communicate with their deaf babies.

A public thank-you to DBC for all of your hard work and, especially, Tami, for your perserverance and great generosity. Excuse the brief blog. I will write more when I have caught up on my sleep.
As always - language for ALL babies,
susan