Comments on: Sign language for hearing infants and toddlers

By: Fixiefoo

Fixiefoo — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 22:05:40 +0000

Great to see you spreading the word about baby signs. As a Deaf mama I haved signed with my boy since he was born and as a result his speech has been excellent from early on, and his signing is great too. I realise many of your readers are international, but I was surprised and disappointed that you linked to a site showing American sign language without any explanation that there are different sign languages in different countries, and it’s definitely appropriate for children to learn the local language. There are loads of resources – here’s one for Australian baby signs: http://www.vicdeaf.com.au/communicateDeafPeople/auslan.html and here’s a book with Australian baby signs http://www.australianbabyhands.com.au/ Keep up the good work – Fixiefoo. fixiefoo.typepad.com

By: Donna B.

Donna B. — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 19:54:04 +0000

I would strongly urge parents of infants not to let concerns about speech delays stop you from signing with your baby. In their early days, I know we all want to think everything is normal and will happen on time and on track. But we do not know if that will be the case. Developmental delays can’t be predicted in most cases — only dealt with after the fact. And signing is often the key to breaking through a speech delay, by allowing a child to communicate successfully even though he isn’t speaking.

This was my experience with my autistic son, who had a vocabulary of about 30 signs before he started talking. His speech therapists reinforced the signs we taught him at home (with the Signing Time dvds). This allowed him to experience successful communication and interaction with us — a huge step in his social development that would have been further delayed had we waited for speech.

His little sister learned sign from infancy, started speaking on time, and is now (at 23 months) using the signs to grasp abstract concepts like numbers and letters, rather than to communicate a desire for cheese (her favorite early sign).

Think about it this way — would you prevent your child from being exposed to a second language in infancy because it might “confuse” the child’s language development? Of course not — more than one language is a benefit to language development. And sign is a language. I also see the benefits in translating information into multiple sensory formats — the children don’t just hear and speak, they also use their kinesthetic sense in forming signs with their bodies. It involves them physically — they “become” the word, color, letter, number, animal.

Lastly — I’ve learned an enormous number of signs watching the DVD’s with the kids, going online to find signs for words I would like to teach them, and reading books like “The Handmade Alphabet” to them. I couldn’t be more enthusiastic about early signing.

By: Jeannette

Jeannette — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 02:49:57 +0000

Oh I recommend Signing Time, too. It just rocks.

My son is profoundly deaf, and ever since he was about 10 mos old he has been glued to Signing Time. We’ve been signing to him as fast as we can learn ASL (again Signing Time helps us, too!). Now at 13 mos he’s signing back, and it is a huge sense of satisfaction that he’s communicating with us. I can only imagine how beneficial it would be to sign with a hearing child, too.

Another benefit of signing with your hearing child is that it gives them basic vocabulary with which to communicate with deaf children they may encounter, and with the rise of cochlear implants in small children, we may begin to see more deaf children in mainstream classrooms, children who also continue to use some signs in addition to their speech development.

By: plinth

plinth — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 18:23:31 +0000

I third Signing Time as a resource. Our daughter has Down syndrome and we had Signing Time suggested by one of her Early Intervention specialists. We started at 8 months. She is definitely speech delayed, but as far as we can tell, she’s not language delayed, as her vocabulary is pretty darn close to that of any child her age (her generative vocab is about 500 signs). When she communicates something fairly complex to me, I count sign language as a blessing because I can’t imagine my frustration of not being able to understand her and her not being able to be understood.
ST featured her on their foundation site: http://www.signingtimefoundation.org/signingstars/

By: Sooz

Sooz — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 20:46:09 +0000

I’ve just been putting the finishing touches to a newspaper article I’ve done on sign language for hearing infants. I have been to a few sessions with a local group and, while I don’t have a child of my own, all the parents there were really positive, saying it eases a lot of frustration.

They teach signing through songs, so for example would teach the animals with Old MacDonald. The children (6mo – 2yrs) all picked things up quickly and apparently use them all the time at home, and many of the parents said that their kids seem to be learning to speak sooner as well.

By: Laurie

Laurie — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 13:16:22 +0000

We taught C a few signs and it worked well in that period before he could speak, but knew he wanted something. We stuck to the basics like milk, more, thank you, please and he used them. Now he can speak and sometimes he’ll do the sign as he is saying the word – like making the motion for thank you as he says “tank you”. I don’t think it delayed him at all, in fact, I think it got him on the road to understanding that we need to be able to communicate with each other, if even in the most basic sense (does that make sense?)

By: m.

m. — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 04:46:34 +0000

My three old son has been in speech therapy for the past nine months for a speech disorder (CAS)…part of his therapy has been learning a few signs and these have been very powerful tools for him. Anything you can do to help your child communicate is good! Sometimes learning sign language augments spoken language.

By: Naomi

Naomi — Sun, 16 Jul 2006 23:04:30 +0000

We started signing with our son when he was about 9 months old. He didn’t sign back too much (just milk, ball & dog) until he was a year old. A month later, he had about 10 signs, and now, at almost 19 months old, I’ve lost count of his signs…maybe 40?

He also has a lot of spoken words (maybe 30-40?), and is easily putting 2 words together. Some words he knows both the sign and the spoken word, some just one or the other.

Moral? I don’t think signing adversely affected his speech at all, actually, I think it really helped! And it’s lots of fun!!

By: Leslie

Leslie — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 20:11:01 +0000

My husband and I signed with baby number 2, and now baby number 3. I think it’s absolutely amazing that we can communicate effectively with our little ones at such a young age. My son used his signs with us and with his sitter all the time — before we knew it, the other kids at daycare started signing too (even the ones who were already speaking). It’s an amazing journey that I cherish!

By: Sara

Sara — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 19:33:29 +0000

I signed with my son- now nearly three- and he started “getting it” at about 13-14 mos. By the time he started talking fairly fluently (before 2- I know kind of early) he regularly used about 50 signs. He didn’t really get the concept of being able to tell me problems, but he could identify things and make requests. As he learned to talked, the signs faded away, but signing cartainly didn’t impair his talking AT ALL! I’ll sign again with my daughter- now 7 mos- time to get out the sign dictionary once again!