There is a popular movement which encourages parents to teach their babies to sign as early as possible. Proponents of this movement suggest that babies are able to learn and communicate in sign language well before they are able to communicate using spoken words.
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I have seen this everywhere. From what I have read, it is supposed to increase your childs intelligence later in life. They say that a baby knows what he wants to say, but his language has not caught up yet. I personally don’t know anyone that has done this with their child, but it is an interesting theory.
I don’t know if it makes them smarter but it does make some things easier.
i’ve done this with all three of my kids. started from birth with my premature daughter, b/c we knew she was high risk for having hearing problems later on (thankfully she doesnt). All kids are receptive to it in different ways IMO. My preemie is the one who took off with it, started signing at 6 mos old and signed hundreds of things by her first birthday, she also was a VERY early talker, and a very good talker. I have no regrets, its wonderful for a small child to be able to get their needs across to you, whichever way they can. With my kids they would learn the sign, then eventually say the word with the sign, then drop the sign and just use the word. that was their “evolution” of language. They rarely use signs now, but probably b/c i don’t either…
We did sign with my son. At it’s height, he knew and could sign about 40 different signs. Most were ASL, but some were ‘baby-ized” versions or things he made up himself. We started signing to him around 7 months, and he started doing them around 10 months. Soon after that he was picking signs up really quick after he grasped the concept of it, and it’s peak was around 18 months. Once he started speaking well enough we all dropped the signing (about the age of 2), but have retained several of them to communicate in quiet situations or through windows etc. He’s close to three now, and we’re working on the alphabet in sign.
The best part of it was being able to communicate with him so early. He was making basic sentences at 12 months, and it was so amazing to see his thoughts and how his mind worked at 1 year! His frustration levels were extremely low compared to his peers. I would babysit other kids, many who were older, and I was amazed at how unable they were to communicate the simple things my son was (‘I need help’, ‘I want to eat’, ‘I have a hurt tummy’, ‘where’s Mom?’). When he was 10 months old he woke up crying in his crib. Walking in, we saw him doing the drink sign, so, we got him a drink and he went right back to sleep. It made our interaction with him simple and direct. No guessing!
I’ve heard that it makes them speak earlier, but that wasn’t the case with our son. I think he actually spoke a little on the late side. HOWEVER, he has now far surpased everyone in his age/gender group in his vocabulary, sentence structure, conceptualization of ideas, adjectives, verbs, etc.
I am definitely going to teach my future children sign, and include way more signs. It was so beneficial for us I would recommend it to EVERYONE.
The only downfall is that all the care givers should be on the same page. Our son is with us all the time so it worked out great teaching him and interacting with him all the time, and he was occasionally watched by my mom. She didn’t understand all his signs, and had to quickly learn all of them as he did. I made up a list of his signs and how he expressed him for any babysitters to help.
The program we used was a guy named Garcia called “Sign with your Baby”. GET IT! It’s about you, the parent, learning the signs and then teaching them to your kid. DON’T get the one that requires the kid to watch the movies in order to learn. They either don’t watch them, or learn more than the parents and then you still have the same problem of not being able to communicate.
i am doing a sign workshop in a few months, when bubs is about 5 months. ive only heard positive things about it