The psychology behind sign communication

Evening everyone! I hope you're all enjoying your week so far, whatever you're getting up to. As for me, I have the fun demand of attending 4 training courses this week. I have attended 2/4 so far, which were fire marshal training & introduction to sign language. The remaining 2 I have to attend are moving people training & crisis drills training.

The purpose behind these training sessions is to make me feel more responsible while working at my job. To be more precise here, I actually have 3 jobs at the moment, and 1 of them consists of being a play worker at a disability play scheme. (Hence these said training courses) 

But looking at the introduction to sign language training course in particular, I have learned today (when I had attended the training course) that there is a ton of psychology involved with understanding sign communication. When I was reflecting on my training later I had finished, I thought I could disclose what I had learned in my introduction to singing training course onto here, so you guys (who are interested) could learn a few things about signing for yourself!

Why people communicate with their hands:

At around some point in life, you are guaranteed to come across somebody who is non-verbal, and therefore, can only communicate using their hands. Word of advice here for everyone: "Just because they cannot verbally talk, doesn't mean they cannot understand our verbal communication." If nobody was to ever understand hand communication in this world, then try putting yourselves into the non-verbal hand communicator's shoes and see how frustrating the outcome will be for them, as they will end up feeling isolated & alone due to them not feeling a part of anything. This is where the importance of needing to understand hand communication comes into play. By doing so to another non-verbal hand communicator, you'll be making them feel more welcome by taking away their burden of not feeling like they can confidently communicate.

Why people communicate with picture symbols:

Now lets discuss picture symbols. Again, these are commonly used by non-verbal communicators, because they provide visual context of what that person wants/needs. For example, if they are using picture symbols to ask someone what toy they would like to play with. Another way of a non-verbal communicator using picture symbols, is to visually grasp what is happening throughout each day. Or a day schedule, if you like. Where I work at a disability play scheme on a Saturday, I have seen a few people who use picture symbols to communicate with people. (Myself included) In my view, I think that picture symbols are a useful form of communication, as not everyone can understand verbal communication all of the time, right? And pictured symbols helps you to, well, put pictures inside your head. For example, a picture of somebody eating. This helps us to understand that the non-verbal communicator wants something to eat.  

I think I've covered everything for this post, so I'll conclude it here.

I hope all of you have found this post beneficial to you to use in the future when it comes to communicating with non-verbal people. In my case, I am still in the learning process of signing, as there is literally a LOT to cover. This was especially during my introduction to signing training.

*I began this post on Tuesday, (25/7/23) but I finished it on the 28/7/23*