About Bilby Publishing - Our History and Commitment

Bilby Publishing - Special needs resources for Early Literacy, Numeracy, Autism and Signed Communication

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People We Work With In/For the Media

Who is Bilby Publishing? What do we do?
Bilby Publishing and Consulting Pty. Ltd. produce, publish, distribute and retail Sign Language Resources. We have done so for over 12 years and are the only Publishing and Distribution House in Australia dedicated to Sign Language Resources.

With a background in Information Technology, but a need for sign language, Bilby Publishings founders (Chris and Lee Bilby) have used their graphic design, programming and AUSLAN knowledge to produce Sign Language Resources, with a specific focus on teaching young children and assisting babies through to adults Sign Language.

Bilby Publishing started producing sign language resources based on the needs of the Bilby children. After speaking to hundreds of people; professionals, support workers, parents and the "hearing impaired" themselves the Bilby's realised that they were not the only ones who needed resources.

"We have found other parents, and many isolated Disability Organisations; producing their own resources, each struggling to distribute them themsleves. We have brought them together into one distribution point." Lee Bilby

Read more about why we do what we do (link is to more information at the base of this page); or look at Bilby Publishing in the Media (links to a new page)

Who Do We Work With?
We work with and represent over 40 seperate Authors and Associations to bring you the best posible resources. Some are dissability organisations and associations, others schools and teachers; a number are members of the Deaf Community, and some are parents or professions with knowledge and experience to share.

The list is constantly growing; but a collection of short bio's of some of the authors Bilby Publishing represents can be read on our People We Work With page

Are you an author?
We are open to new Sign Language or Autism based products. If you are an author you can send products or manuscripts to us; however, due to the large number of submissions we can not guarantee return of products, so DO NOT SEND US ORIGINALS. We also do not accept submissions of children's stories without a special needs focus. Contact Us for more information

Children sign for their parents at the Bega Valley Sign Weekend

Why has Bilby Publishing has commited itself to the development of Australian Sign Language resources that help young children, their carers and eachers gain greater access to resources in sign language?Who Do We Work With?
In brief, Bilby Publishing was established by Chris and Lee Bilby some years ago. Both the Bilby's children needed sign language, for different reasons, and put simply the Bilby's were dismayed at what limited resources were available and how expensive those resources could be!

At first Lee Bilby designed the Alphabet and Color posters for their eldest son, over eight years ago. With time these posters became available through Deafness Resources Australia and demand for cards grew. So we developed the alphabet and flash cards. These have all recently recieved a dramatic face lift, and are now available in Northern, Southern and Signed English editions.

As IT and multi media programmers we were surprised that the need to spend hours at the photocopier producing resources for children continued. So Sign With Me was developed. Now everyone can produce resources relevant to their own personal needs! No photocopier required!

Yet, there was still something....on-line access to updated, shared images. As on-line open source image bank that everyone could use. That's what was needed. So we developed SignSwap.com.au; which has since evolved into SignPlanet.net. An on-line reference site that allows everyone access to images of AUSTRALIAN SIGN LANGUAGE. Plus anyone can download the template and create their own images, or request an image at any time. We are already working on developing a Sign With Me 2 that will let you import images as they become available and SHARE YOUR DATABASE AND IMAGE BANK with anyone you want.

Why do we support sign so strongly?
When Dy, the Bilby's eldest son was diagnosid with a sever to profound hearing loss the Bilby's began researching.....

Now with two children the Bilby's continue to research the effectiveness of Signed and Oral communication, when educating deaf, hearing impaired, autisic, downes, cerebal palsy, speech disbrasic and otherwise speech impaired children.

Research from around the world contiunes to conclude that deaf non-signing children within "oral only" households experience significantly higher levels of communication problems that utimatly interfere with learning and social development.

"Every deaf child, whatever the level of his/her hearing loss, should have the right to grow up bilingual. By knowing and using both a sign language and an oral language (in its written and, when possible, in its spoken modality), the child will attain his/her full cognitive, linguistic and social capabilities." François Grosjean, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, The right of deaf child to grow bilingual