If you've ever been a child, you probably remember singing "If You're Happy and You Know It" with your parents, teachers, or other guardians. Remember clapping your hands and stomping your feet? You just thought you were having a lot of fun, but singing songs like this actually helped you learn essential language skills.
The same is true even if you can't hear, as one-year-old Bayleigh and her dad demonstrated in this adorable video.
Kevin Nadrowski and his daughter are both deaf, and songs like this help her learn how to sign, Mashable reports, just as how singing songs with their parents helps hearing children learn to speak.
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In fact, music is a huge part of the deaf community. While deaf people often grow up thinking that sound is not meant for them, that often isn't the case.
"I was born deaf and I was taught to believe that sound wasn't a part of my life," artist Christine Sun Kim signed at a TED Talk. "Yet, I realize now that that wasn't the case at all. Sound was very much a part of my life. Really, on my mind every day."
She explains in the talk that American Sign Language and music are similar in many ways, and that sound doesn't have to be heard — it can be seen, felt, and experienced.
Looking at the expressions on Nadrowski's face and in his hands while he sings with his daughter, this becomes immediately evident. The video wasn't meant to be a teachable moment for hearing people (even if we do learn something from it), but a sweet and personal moment between father and daughter.
In his first video of Bayleigh, posted last October, Nadrowski wrote, "Being a father is the most exciting, amazing thing that ever happened to me." He later posted several videos of her first Easter, her first visit to the zoo, and a GoPro video showing clip after clip of adventures he's taken with his daughter. Seems to us that Bayleigh has a pretty great dad.
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