I heard that baby’s can learn sign language and communicate with you before they can talk.
Have you ever done this before?
How old should the baby be to learn this?
How did you learn how to sign?
My baby is now 9 months old and is a little boy. I am curious as to the results of this idea.
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They have a Baby Einstein DVD for babies over 6 months old called “Baby’s First Sign”. It is really neat I have been showing it to my baby and trying to use the signs throughout the day.
I personally do not have any kids, but I know two families that taught or are teaching their children sign. Both started at a very young age. The older one is now choosing sign over speaking, and is causing a bit of problems for them. Just know it may affect how they learn to use words vocally. I have studied in college about children who learn two languages at an early age and short-term it makes them learn more but will end up slowing them down once they get into school. Good Luck either way you go!
My cousin introduced this idea to me with my 1st daughter, she was about 9-10 months when we started. We just picked a few common things for her to learn, more, please, thank you, milk, cat and dog. She used them even after she could say the word, she would say it and sign it at the same time. It was good to have as instead of getting frustrated she would just sign what she wanted. I have tried to work with my 2nd daughter, we were starting with “more’ but she is saying the word now instead and is 10 mo so i guess we started too late. i got it from a baby board book that had the most common signs in it.
I have not done this but my sisters kid started to learn it in preschool before she could talk and she does pretty good with it and just points to her mouth when she is hungry and gives signs like that.
Yes, it helps. My 16-month-old son can sign milk, bath, and baby. He call “tell” us when he wants out of his high chair, too. He recognizes other signs, I can tell from his reactions. It’s such a help! His big sister was hard of hearing but we didn’t know for a long time. She was late learning to talk. We taught her a few signs and it made all our lives much nicer! Really reduced her frustration.
His signs may not look exactly like the ASL signs, but if you both know what he means, they work!
Read Baby Signs by Linda Acredo, Ph D, and Susan Goodwyn, Ph D.
I used sign with my daughter who is now 2 years old.
It was such an amazing thing to watch my 9 month old communicate with me even though she couldn’t speak. I don’t believe that using sign with slow the childs speech. If anything it sped up my daughters.