My sister in law teaches my nephew (who just turned 1) sign language. He has no hearing problems whatsoever — she just taught him sign language so he can communicate since he’s too young to talk a lot. (he’s been “signing” since he was 10-11 months).
He knows, “bottle”, “hungry”, “milk”, “feed me”, “all done”, and a couple other words.
The only thing is — we do NOT know what all the signs are! so he’ll try and tell us something by “signing it” and we have no clue what he’s saying!
Do you think it’s good to teach a normal baby sign language? or should you just teach them words?
[my mother in law just signed him up for a sign language class as part of his birthday present]
I’m just curious if the sign language is a good thing? or if it’ll be confusing for him in the long run?
[I personally think he won’t be so eager to learn to talk since he’s already communicating through sign language]
what do you think???
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it is a great transition into speech, and in multiple language skills
it’ll be confusing to him.
It will be confusing.
Sure , it would make your child smarter and better prepared go for it ,it can’t hurt
thats a gret idea you should do it
no, he needs to learn how to talk first then sign
l think its a great idea, if l knew sign language l would have taught my children, l think its more the fact you dont understand what he is signing, maybe get your sister in law to teach you the basics also, or look up the net
I have an idea. Have your sister-in-law teach you the signs that she has taught your son.
Teaching your child new things, including how to effectively communicate, is a good thing.
It’s a great idea… so many doors can be opened by this skill!!
I would be supportive. This child will sign as well as he speaks because of it. It is not confusing at all as babies are absolute sponges for knowledge! My niece speaks Spanish as well as English because of this.
no it is too early for a child at so young an age to learn sign language. Although earlier is better, a baby at that stage of life is probably starting to now talk. You child must first learn the basics, such as talking, before he or she learns sign language.
Hey, kids are like sponges.
I say teach if they want to learn.
Too bad more parental units don’t do this!
Yes of course, go for it.
The more language skills of any kind, the better.
I just started to sign to my daughter. Go to weecansign.com and look for info. It really is fun and helps with the frustration because kids can sign before they can talk!
not confusing… it’s empowering … he learned from an early stage how to express himself, how to communicate properly… it’s an advantage if anything!!
if anyone is intersted… this site is awesome!!
http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/pages-layout/concepts.htm
at 8 months my daughter could sign “milk” for when she wanted to nurse… a baby is capable of understanding words and using them meaningfully before their mouths are developed enough to pronounce them… signing gives them a way of doing it!!
It is actually very good an may increase his intelligence.
When a child is born their brain develops and is at it’s greatest capacity for learning new things (new languages, etc.) at about 3-5 years old. After that, connections in the brain are lost if they are not active and their learning capacity is pretty much set for the rest of their life. So it is always best to open your child to as much as you can, teach him new things…
Just make sure you teach him the vocal word along with the sign word and practice both with him so he can retain the connections between the sign, the word, the meaning of the word..
Well, I have heard it is a very good idea to teach sign language to kids who can hear, you should buy a book so you can help learn also which will be great for your communication. Children that age don’t have pronounciation down and don’t have very good control of their tongues yet so it’s better. I am in a similar situation, I married a man with deaf parents so we are pretty much forced to teach our kids sign language and I’m not good with it but at least try to do it. Neither one of my kids have had problems learning to talk, my husband and his four siblings didn’t have problems learning to talk even though their parents don’t speak well enough to understand them, and my niece and nephew haven’t had any problems either and all of them learned sign language first. If you speak to him and sign at the same time he will learn to talk just as quickly as any other child. If anything it will make him a better communicator and he will know a universal language as well. I took a course on ASL just to apease the family before I had kids so I could communicate with my in laws and so they couldn’t talk about me in front of me without me knowing what they said:). I’m not great at it but it works. However, he is your son so it’s completely your decision.
Some of the benefits of baby sign language include:
-Can empower your baby to communicate with those around them before they are able to speak.
This means that your baby may be able to communicate what they want when they want it. It may also enable them to initiate a conversation about topics that interest them. Furthermore it bridges the gap between no language and spoken language.
-Can reduce frustration for both you and your baby.
Sign language may allow your baby to tell you what they want, what’s wrong or what hurts. Therefore your baby may experience less frustration, tantrums and crying. If your baby is able to communicate their basic needs to you, it means you do not have to try and interpret their cries. Sign language can help reduce those tear-filled frustrated moments.
-Can enrich the parent-child relationship.
By introducing baby sign language into your home, you are enhancing the bond with your baby. The nature of Baby sign communication leads you and your baby towards responding to each other in turn and this is a really valuable skill. Signing involves daily interactions with your baby that will eventually lead to a two-way conversation.
-Can provide an insight into your baby’s mind and who they really are.
Baby sign language allows your baby to initiate a conversation with you about what they are interested in. It allows you to see what they are thinking, what they are interested in and what the world looks like from their view. All this before your baby can talk!
-Can accelerate the speech process.
Research has shown that children who use sign language may acquire spoken language faster than non-signing children.
-Can enhance a baby’s confidence, self-esteem and self-expression.
Due to a baby’s ability to communicate their needs, wants and interests through signing, a baby may become more confident.
-Baby sign language can stimulate brain development and potentially increase your baby’s I.Q.
Teaching sign language can stimulate your baby’s brain development. Research has illustrated that signing babies achieve higher scores on future I.Q. tests (up to 12 I.Q. points higher) than children who learn to speak in the traditional manner.
-Signing can stimulate brain development as when learning sign language you use both the right and left hemisphere of the brain compared to learning a spoken language, which only uses the brain’s left hemisphere. This use of both hemispheres results in the brain building more synapses.
My experiences with signing with my kids reflected all of those benefits. So the grown-ups in your family need to get busy and learn some signs!
Well, A lady that I babysit for just started teaching her baby
sign language. The baby is almost 2 but is only saying a few words.
I personally don’t think that it’s a good idea untill they start talking, Because if they can communicate to you
through sign language then they wont see a problem with it.
So they wont feel the need to learn something els like speaking if what their using works just fine.
recently learned in one of my classes that if taught at young ages, the brain can learn up to 10languages if taught to do so so go for it! don’t think your child can’t handle it-u’d be amazed!
i dont see nothing wrong with it, kids learn things easyer the youngerthey are, might be a good idea to learn, might need to no in the future, should not be a problem with him learning to talk kids are like sponges they soak in whatever they can.
,
Yes! I think it is a very good thing. However, the people who care for him and spend time with him should be given a ‘briefing’ in the basic signs too.
My son is starting to talk more and more, but he still doesn’t have the ability to really express himself. He’s now saying ‘milk’, ‘help’, and ‘more’ among other words. But before then, his only means of communication was crying, whining, and screaming. Teaching him ‘help’ made a huge difference in our day. Sure, sometimes he gets frustrated and tantrums on me, but mostly he’ll ask for help. If he wanted more of something at a meal, he could ask for more long before he could make his mouth and voice form the sounds.
Does it slow them down in learning to talk? NO! In fact, the story seems to be that it encourages them to learn more, that kids who learn sign have a better vocabulary once they do begin to talk. My son was a little slower than some in starting to use verbal communication, but now has a vocabulary of regularly used words (and understood by others, not just me) that is much larger than many of his little buddy/age-mates.
Each ‘word’ sign my son learned, he learned on a need-to-know basis. As in, something was frustrating him and either I taught him or we worked out a sign for what he wanted. Made him a much happier kid, and me a much happier mama.
I had to give this question a star as it is actually a truly interesting question which I have no idea really what I think about. I have an 8 month old son and haven’t even considered signing but i like the way someone called it ’empowering’-perhaps it is. It’s nice to have some alternative questions in this section to the usual am i pregnant and is my baby hungry etc etc.
Teaching sign language at this age is great. It actually helps to enhance verbal communication. but ONLY IF the child is hearing the spoken word as well. For example, if he is being taught the sign for bottle then he should not be just shown the sign for bottle and shown the bottle. He also needs to hear the word spoken. And every time he uses a sign, he should have the corresponding word spoken back to him so he knows what it is and what it sounds like.
I am a speech pathologist and we use sign language all the time to assist early language development
Babies learn so much at this age, they can learn two languages at the same time, yes yes yes, teach them both, what a wonderful gift, and I mean that in both ways, what a wonderful gift.
Now would be a good time for you and others to learn signing,and you can teach it to your own child,it can open up a whole world in the future for your children if they can communicate with the def.
God bless.
My three year old and 19 month old are not at the speech level that they need to be. I do not religiously use sign language, in fact, my daughter picked up the sign eat from my son, who has DROPPED the few signing words he learned as he began to talk more… I think signing with a baby is fine as long as you still vocalize what is being signed so they can connect the two. (My two are both in speech therapy and all the therapists have introduced sign language).
I think that it is a good idea