Is Baby Signing Useful?

S

Shenzhennifer

Registered User
I am thinking about starting baby signing with my 7 month old. I just wonder who has done it and what their experience and success rate has been with it.
Do you think it`s useful?
And will it stop my son was emitting high-pitched shrieks when he wants to say something?:haha:
 
hehe - it won't stop his shrieking ;)

I think it's useful IF you do it AALLLLL the time with him. We did the course (and Singwa was great!! I'm sure she'll probably come and give her opinion too... she teaches it over here. Buckeroo, I think she's called...) - but we haven't signed as much as we should have... My daughter's 9 1/2 months now and only does the sign for "milk" and "bye bye". I think though, with her personality, she's very easy going and not very demanding... probably for a more high maintenance baby, it's more useful... I do recommend learning about it, even do the BabySigns course if you like. And then you're equipped to use it as much or as little as you like.
 
We started doing it on a fairly casual basis when our son was 10 or 11 months, and even at that late age we found it (and still find it) so helpful. He was getting upset at the table, banging on it and pointing, and we realized that if he could ask for more or for water it might help his behavior. It really made a difference for us! We didn't take a course or anything, just use a book and look up words as we need them or think they would be helpful. It's really been an organic process for us ... when it seems like he's trying to communicate something that we don't have the word for, we look it up and start using it. He learns fast, and generally it just takes a few days for him to get it. Right now (he's 17 mo) he knows and uses more, milk, water, cracker, sea cracker (our word for nori, his favorite snack) bed, dog, poop, wash hands, hungry, and book. It's funny, some of these words he speaks and signs at the same time, some he only signs, and there are words that he speaks but doesn't sign. As I said before, we're pretty casual about it, but I think anything that helps our kiddos to communicate is good, and it's been great for us!
 
I think it's great that all have found baby signing to be so helpful as I definitely see the benefits of it with them to communicate their needs in what can often be a frustrating time.

But for me personally I would hesitate to teach anything that would hinder their verbal skills. I would rather my son try to learn new words and their sounds especially since boys are often delayed in speech compared to girls. My son does get frustrated sometimes when he points or reaches for something and I give him the wrong thing, but I would rather give him everything on the table and then have him learn the word of the item he actually wants.
 
I'm sure that no parent would want to hinder the verbal skills of their children. I am not aware of any research which suggests that using simple signs with babies would negatively impact upon their speech development. The research I have done so far in this area seems to indicate that the opposite is in fact the case.
Southside, I am curious. Why do you think that baby signs would hinder development of verbal skills?
 
I am also interested in learning baby signing.

monte, could you share the name of the book that you are using for baby signing? and where did you get it?

Thank you very much.
 
We used signing with our children. Never a formal class, but like Monte, just using words that were useful. Sometimes, he even made up his own signs!

Re: verbal delay, my son had a muscular issue when he was born. So we saw our share of therapists the first few years. All of the physical therapists and speech therapists encouraged the use of signs. However, we always said the word when we signed it and encouraged him to do the same.

Now that he is 8, we still have a way to communicate across a room. It's become a bit of a "family language" of sorts.
 
I've not done any baby signing with my son. I "listened in" on a few threads when he was less than 1-year-old, asking the same questions SZJ asked here.

My conclusion that for my son, myself, our family and our lifestyle, signing was more of a burden than a help. At that time, I felt like adding signing to the mix would be just "one more thing" that we were trying to learn/teach/accomplish.

My son has always been very busy and up until recently, not one to focus for any significant amount of time and at the time when I considered doing baby signing, I felt that teaching it would require too much focus from him.

Having said all that, my son invented his own signs for things like "I want it/Yes." When he was about 1-year-old he started putting his right hand behind his head when he wanted something or wanted to say yes. We think this came from him seeing us ask him to nod his head yes but he couldn't figure out the up and down nod part so he would put his hand behind his head to manually tip down his chin in a nod fashion.

Now that he's 21-months-old he now says "please" and "thank you" as well as most words for the objects that he wants "book, ball, milk, bread, food, light" etc. So, I really don't feel like we missed anything with not signing. Really, more and more there are very few times that we really don't know what he's talking about.

I guess because we weren't using signing we all just became really tuned into what different facial expressions, sounds and gestures meant in terms of communication from him because we didn't have any other form of communication from him up until when he started really babbling and talking.

I'd say that if you've got time on your hands and are curious about it, it wouldn't hurt to give it a try and see if it works for your baby and for you. There are lots of resources online that can show you the basics for signs with babies and some theory behind it and probably a lot of ladies here who can teach you the ropes. Every family is different so maybe signing will be a good thing for yours?
 
I really didn't mean for my post to be negative as it's great to hear all of these wonderful experiences with it, but for me just personally, I feel like we encourage my son to speak, babble and try his best in getting out sounds/words so much that signing might be confuse the message that we are trying to send to him.

Again, this is just me personally.
 
http://www.aslpro.com/cgi-bin/aslpro/aslpro.cgi

Here's a great site with videos of different signs. You can click on the "asl for babies" up the top to give you more "baby" words.

One thing that is important when signing is to always SAY the word as you sign. Signing isn't a substitute for talking, but something to assist. And apparently (I haven't looked into it myself), when used like this, signing actually helps kids to speak earlier. It's just like how we all naturally wave "bye bye" or nod "yes" and shake "no" - and babies learn both the signs for those things, as well as the words. Those words are still some of the first that a baby will say - they aren't hindered because we naturally do "signs" with them.
 
I`ll have a look at that website and see what might be useful for us.
I agree that as long as you`re saying the word at the same time as signing it, there shouldn`t be any reason why their speech would be stunted.
The only thing for me to consider, and this follows along with what Thanka2 was saying, since I would have to be really consistent about it, it sounds like a bit of a busy venture. But only if you`re going the full monty, which I wouldn`t. Like, it`s great if your kid can sign `giraffe`, but is it really necessary? I guess I`m just looking for basic communication, like feelings and actions, less objects.
I`ll see what I`ll have to get myself into:)
 
my son signed a few, not much and drop all signs when he started to learn words and talk at 18 months (late boomer) but now at 2.5, he speaks non-stop! no, i will not go all the way to teach signing.
 
The book I have is "The baby signing book" by Sara Bingham, but I look up signs online too. We definitely always say the word along with the sign, and our son does too, about half the time. I certainly don't see it as a substitute for speaking.
As for time, I initially had big plans to start signing early with our son, and bought our book when he was 3 months. However, we moved here when he was 5 months old, and I didn't even unpack the book because I just felt that learning how to parent, how to live in HK, and trying to learn some Canto was enough, there was no way I was going to try to learn anything else.
I didn't even think about it again until he was 10 or 11 mo, and seemed to really want to communicate things to us. Since then, it really hasn't taken up extra time or brain power for us or felt like a burden at all. We only learn necessary words, and learn them as we need them, and then it doesn't take up anymore time than talking does. If we decide that we want to teach him "water", for instance, I look up the sign, then everytime I say the word water I sign it as well. I probably try to say it more often the first few days, pointing out the water when we wash our hands or take a bath or when we drink some, but really, that's all that's involved.
All that being said, parents have been raising kids without sign for a long time now, so clearly it's not necessary. But I'd encourage anyone who was interested to try it and don't be afraid of it being another stress or taking up too much time.
 
Signing, as taught in the Baby Signs Program, is meant to facilitate communication during that period when the spoken words are not there (or are not very clear yet). Over 20 years of research has shown that signing in NO way impedes speech development, but actually helps babies learn to talk sooner.

When we first started signing with J, it was purely for fun. My husband, who initially was doing it only to humor me *rolls eyes*, actually got so into it that he was the one who encouraged me to get properly trained and to bring the Baby Signs Program to Hong Kong. For us, personally, the best part of signing was that it opened a window into our baby's world --i.e., through signs, he was able to share with us things that he was interested in, his thoughts, etc. --things that he otherwise might not have been able to communicate as easily without the signs to help him. The talking early (especially for a boy -- 2- to 3-word sentences at 14 months and very clear, complete sentences at 18 months), the extensive vocabulary... those were a bonus.

Signing with your baby is as easy and as natural as teaching him to wave bye-bye. It is NOT hard. Put simply, it's a matter of adding signs to the words whenever you speak with your baby.

I say this not because I teach baby sign language --but I really would urge that you give baby signing a go. You have nothing to lose and a host of wonderful benefits to gain. Especially so for those who plan to raise their children in a bilingual settings, the signs really come in handy and provide that "link" between the different languages.

I've signed with both my children and I will do it again if ever I have another one! :)
 
My baby signs

My baby is 1 year old, she signs because she needs to communicate what she really wants, or not want! She loves this baby-led approach we have been trying to raise her up in. She asks, signs, for mama's milk :gmilkwhen she needs it, tells (signs and point to) us when she needs help to get something high up, tells us whether she had finished mealtime, tells us when she needs to use the toilet! When she sees an animal in photo or illustration, with a cute smile, she signs, and makes happy screams!
 
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