Carissa Martos has a B.A. in English from the University of California and is currently earning her Masters' in Teaching.  She babysits for two lovely little girls on top of raising her own children, and is teaching all of them to sign!

Carissa Martos has been using American Sign Language, in one capacity or another, since she was nine months old.  Her mother, a speech pathologist, started teaching it to her so that Carissa could express whether she was hungry or needed a new diaper, and it became an invaluable tool.  As Carissa got older, she enjoyed being able to talk with her Deaf friends, and interpret songs at church, but aside from being able to help out in a pinch at work when her boss couldn't understand some Deaf clients, she never gave it much thought.

Then, her daughter Rory was born, and Carissa began, like her mother before her, to teach her some rudimentary signs like "food" and "more", but the signs didn't take.  At eighteen months, Rory was still not talking at all, and was becoming very frustrated with her lack of ability to communicate.  Finally, when Rory was in the hospital with a life-threatening illness, her daughter was a captive enough audience that Carissa (and her mother) were able to teach her some signs.   She instantly became a much happier baby.

Rory still didn't begin to speak until she was two years old, but with signing, she was finally able to make her needs, and her wants, known to her parents.  So, when Carissa and her husband discovered they were expecting another baby, the fact that this child would be taught early sign was just a given.  However, Julian was born with cloverleaf-multi-suture-craniosynostosis, a condition that required two neurosurgereis before he was 10 months old.  Due to possible intracranial pressure, Carissa and her family were warned that Julian might never speak.   Like many parents faced with unfortunate news, after hearing this, Carissa simply decided to go about proving her son's doctors wrong.

For a long, long time he didn't.  Nor did he eat solid food, and he stopped growing at nine months of age, for no reason any doctor has been able to determine.  Still, the family pushed on with the sign language, but Julian seemed bored by it...until he discovered the best teacher, his sister.  A fan of the Signing Time DVDs, she delighted in showing him the signs for ball, milk and food.  "Ball," she'd say, just like Rachel, "like you're holding a ball."

Suddenly Julian understood, and began copying his sister anytime he could.  Newly two, he now has over a dozen signs, and even four or five spoken words (all ones he learned to sign first!).  His medical issues aren't resolved, and many of his ailments remain a mystery, but he is at least able to talk to us!

Carissa worked her way through the ranks of the Signing Time Academy, progressing from the Baby level to Advanced, and then from Advanced up to Master.  She's taken four ASL classes online, and is continuing her ASL education at Portland Community College, where she is in her second year of courses.  Carissa volunteers weekly at the Washington school for the Deaf, tries to attend at least one Deaf event a week, and is planning to apply to the interpreter program this spring.  She was recently selected to take on the organizational and training position of Associate Director of the Signing Time Academy for the Northwest Region.

"Come, sign with us!"