About Bilby Publishing and Signed Education

A little about Bilby Publishing.

Who is Bilby Publishing and what do they do?

Bilby Publishing and Consulting Pty. Ltd. produce, publish, distribute and retail Sign Language Resources. We have done so for over 10 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 producing their own resources, struggling to distribute them themsleves, and brought them together into one distribution point."
Lee Bilby

We distribute products by parents and members of the Deaf community:

Marie Kerwin
Caroline O'Reilly - Deaf Adult of Qld
Nigel Coates and the Australian Theatre of the Deaf
Samantha Bachofen von Echt
Caroline Halo
Lee & Chris Bilby

Resources developed by professionals :

Speech Therapists Amanda and Terri of Therapy Friends
Lucia Smith - Speech Therapist
Dorothy O'Brien - para-professional Auslan interpreter and deafness consultant

We also distribute products by recognised Australian Organisations:

Deafness Foundation
The Victorian College for the Deaf
Deaf Children Australia
ERA Centre, Melbourne
Australian Baby Hands
Child's Play
DeafSA - The Royal Deaf Society of South Australia
The Wiggles

MEET THE AUTHORS
Want to know more about our authors? Read their stories and get to know each one under our new "Meet The Authors" section.

Are you an author?
We are open to new products to distribute, if you know of one, then please Contact Us

Can you help sell products?
We are always looking for people to help sell our products. Whether you run workshops or playgroups, have a large circle of friends or a table at a public event, wish to run a fundraiser or have a shop, we would also like to hear from you.

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 teachers gain greater access to resources in sign language?

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. 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

We intend to publish a full compelation of our research soon. You can view some papers on-line via our links page. In breif, as a result of our research and own experience, we advocate Bilingual education. That is an approach to educating deaf children which utilises both sign language and written/spoken english. We have no doubts that, if deaf children are to recieve equal value and comprehension within the class room as their hearing peers; and as a result equal opportunities within the workplace, it is esencial that sign be the primary means of communication.

Read the Research
We have recorded a list of links that we have found helpful in researching these issues and get in touch with related organisations.