Carissa Martos has a B.A. in English from the University of California, a background in education, and is currently pursuing her ASL Interpretation Certificate and A.A.S.  She's also a mother, advocate, artist and the Academy Outreach Coordinator for the Signing Time Foundation.

Carissa Martos has been using 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, 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 neurosurgeries before he was 10 months old, a third when he was three, and is expected to require three or four more.  Due to possible intra-cranial 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 communicate.  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.  Nearly four, he now has over a 100 signs, which he uses to form simple phrases, and even some 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 his family!

In an effort to better communicate with her son, Carissa went on a hiatus from her M.A. in teaching to focus on learning ASL.  She took 4 classes online while waiting for an opening at the local school, and is continuing her ASL education at Portland Community College, where she has taken 2 years of ASL and Deaf Culture classes and has been accepted into the Sign Language Interpreter Training Program. 

Carissa has volunteered at Washington school for the Deaf, attends Deaf Mass at St Philip Neri parish in Portland, and tries to attend at least one Deaf event a week. 

Carissa worked her way through the ranks of the Signing Time Academy, beginning at Baby, progressing from Baby to Advanced, and then moving from up to Master Signing Time Instructor.  She was selected to take on the organizational and training position of Associate Director of the Signing Time Academy for the Northwest Region, and and held that position from March of 2010 until November of 2011.  She now works for the non-profit Signing Time Foundation as their Signing Time Academy Outreach Coordinator, helping to bring the understanding that "signing is for children of all abilities" to cities all over the nation, as well as in Canada and in Ghana.

"Come, sign with us!"