Teaching Sign Language to Babies
 

I remembered that there had been an earlier thread about Teaching Sign to Babies to allow them to communicate before they reached the stage of development where they could interact verbally.

Juju was really hot on this idea, and posted about it in this now archived thread.

The Jujette was making a fair degree of progress when he last checked in about her.

Today I was reading the frontpage of FoxNews and found this article that seems to indicate Juju was on the leading edge of a trend, as were Perth and Case (actually, they had him beat by a couple of years).

Interestingly (from a "what a small world" perspective), two of the interviewed folks in the article are local. Ambler is about 10 minutes away, and West Chester 50 minutes.

Our 18 year old son was being taught sign language 17 years ago. It worked out wonderfully for him. University freshman at Gallaudet University now. We. Are. So. Proud. I know you knew that. :)

I took a six month night school course to try and learn sign language a few years ago.. i've always wanted to know how.

It would be great to teach kids english.. and sign language and maybe french or japanse when they are young.. so that they are multilingual. i would love to be multilingual now. I keep doing these night classes on different languages but forget the bulk of it.. but if i had of started young i may be a rich entrpeneur (cant spell it) by now!!

I'd do it.. if only for the kid having the skill there later in life.

We started to teach our daughter sign language when she was a baby about 5 years ago. She learned a few signs, and they helped her to get her basic needs taken care of, probably resulting in less frustration for her. Mostly though, I think we could figure out what she wanted by how she acted. So we stopped with the sign language. She started to talk soon after that.

While it's true young kids can pick up languages relatively easily, there is usually a delay in speaking in general when the toddler is trying to get a handle on multiple languages, especially if they are vastly different, like an Asian language and a Romance language.

One of my mother's coworkers lived in a house with several relatives where English, Spanish, Basque, and Chinese were spoken frequently by various members of the household. The coworker and her husband had a baby, and the little boy did not speak at all. His comprehension was obviously fine, and the doctors had told her he was just going to be mute, for unknown reasons. Then one day when he was four--just as they were looking into special education classes to put him in for kindergarten--they were playing one day and his mother said, "Jose, close that door," and he turned to her and said quite clearly, "No, I want it open." From that moment on, he spoke all four languages fluently, and the doctors decided that he had just been taking the time to sort them all out in his head.

I also read about this while pregnant, and came across a book "Baby Sign" on clearance at the local bookstore that I bought. Never used it though. Like Glatt, I guess my daughter was pretty clear about what she needed when she needed it. I might try it tho with #2 if he/she isn't so easy to 'understand'. Maybe Juju still checks in once in awhile and can give us his :2cents: , I'd really like to hear from a 'real' person who tried it.

Sarah will be 2 next month, and she has an amazing verbal vocabulary. People are always amazed at her level of speech. She doesn't know a ton of signs, but she knows a few handfuls of them. We mostly used sign language as a communication bridge for us before she could speak. Once she started speaking, we focused more on that. She's quite excited when she gets to show off her vocabulary in either language, though.

I think the biggest benefit is that it clues kids in early on the concept of associating ideas with symbols. Whether the symbol is a sound or a hand gesture -- it doesn't matter. Once they "get" that underlying concept of "this is how communication works", they really seem to take off.

Hey juju, hows life working in the den of the beast?

Oh....and the Eagles are going to make your father-in-law unhappy next weekend. :lol:

There's a little boy in Freddie's daycare who is almost 2 and doesn't talk yet... he has a big sister "in tune" with him, and so he still grunts and points. His mom decided signing was the way to go. So Freddie and I are learning some signs to talk to Joseph. In fact, on the ASL library, I found this: http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/P/W2905.htm

Freddie was behind me, reading over my shoulder, and she said... Mommy? What's Pliss off?

It doesn't last if it's not drilled on a regular basis. We know kids who grew up in a tri-lingual household. She spoke English, Spanish and French. He spoke English and Spanish. The kids grew up speaking all three. But once they went to school (here in the US), they stopped speaking the other two and only spoke English. They can still understand French and Spanish, though.

A couple I know is trying this. Note that the couple is trying it. The baby doesn't seem all that interested in playing along. She's 12 months old, FWIW.

It's certainly interesting. Much different than working in a pizza place.

Ah, the master of understatement. :lol:

A question for those of you who have used sign language with your infants...
 

One theory against signing with babies suggests that it delays speech (because the child becomes dependant and content with the signs). I work at a daycare, but have no children of my own. I'm curious, what do those of you who have used this with your children think of this?

My son has what people have described as an "advanced" vocabulary and we taught him sign language starting at about 1 year. That matches well with other stories I've heard. I pretty strongly believe that it has a lot to do with the sign language.