Any Baby Signs success stories out there?

[smomom]

DS is soon to be 9 months old. I am really interested in communicating with him through baby signs and have started already. I know it’s a little too early for him to sign, but I wanted to get a jump on certain words and signs – such as feeding signs.

Here are my questions:

- has anyone had success with signs?

- Did you find a particular book helpful? (such as Joseph Garcia or Goodwyn’s Baby Signs)

- If you did like a particular book over another – can you tell me why?

- Are the videos that accompany the books geared to children, parent, or both?

I checked out Baby Signs from the library, and I am awaiting for Garcia’s book and video to arrive from another library branch, but I would love to hear what others think.

Thanks so much!

[MKH76]

We haven't used any book for this. But our daycare facility teaches the kids sign language and gave us parents a hand out. It is great. He does food, drink, more, enough, up, tired...a bunch more. It has really cut down on the crying. At first DH was skeptical and said Joshua was going to sign forever and never speak, but we use the word with the sign. Like if Joshua is in the high chair and looks like he might be done with breakfast, I sign enough and ask if he has had enough.

We just started this about 6 weeks ago, and I wish we had done it sooner.

[egoldber]

Sarah has a pretty large sign vocabulary (50+ words) that I am looking to expand.

The Garcia book is mostly aimed at convincing parents why signing is a good idea, and I have had better luck with videos aimed at children. My FAVORITE is the Signing Time series of videos. Check out www.signingtime.com. Sarah adores these videos and knows all the signs on all 3 videos.

The key is to be consistent and do it ALL the time. Just make it part of your day and how you interact with your child and they will pick it up.

I have found it to be a godsend with Sarah since she is language delayed.

I am also looking at other videos like "Talking Hands" and "Baby See N Sign".

HTH,

[daisymommy]

Beth, do you think this video would be approprite for babies as young as Josh? Would he pick up on it? I was very impressed at how well Sarah does signing!

[Karenn]

I was just going to post today how much I am LOVING signing with Colin. Over the last couple of months he has learned around 15 signs and it is so much fun! (Not to mention helpful!) I never would have imagined that he had so much to say at 13 mos, but he "chatters" with his hands all day long.

I second Beth's recommendation for the Signing Time video. I'm certain that Colin wouldn't be signing nearly so well without these videos. Both Baby Signs and Garcia are helpful too, but neither book was as useful to me as the Signing Times video. Colin loves the video and has since we bought it. (I think it was around 8 or 9 months, but I really can't remember.) One of the things that I like about it is that I learn the signs from the video too, so it makes it really easy for me to reinforce his signing.

You may have already seen these, but here are links to both books' websites. I might go so far as to say, skip the books, read their websites, and just buy the Signing Time videos. But that's just me. :)
[http://www.babysigns.com/babysigns_babysigns.shtml]
[http://www.sign2me.com/default6.htm]

[parkersmama]

We used Baby Signs with both of our older children with great success. At the time that we chose Baby Signs, there weren't a lot of other books out there geared to signing with babies. I wasn't too worried about the signs not being ASL because we were using them as a bridge until they were old enough to communicate verbally. I liked that the signs "made sense" in relation to the word being signed such as tapping the top of your head for "hat". I think we found the sign for "more" to be one of the most useful and most often used. From there they could point to what they wanted if they didn't know the word or sign for it. I know that we'll use some form of signing again but I'm not sure this time if we'll do ASL (such as with the videos Beth mentioned) or if we'll go with Baby Signs. Starting between 7 and 9 months worked great for us. They both did their first sign about a month after us beginning to sign frequently. Good luck!!

[egoldber]

The nice thing about ASL is that there is a sign for everything since it is already a "language". :) This is probably a personal thing, but if I had to make up signs for things, I would be less likely to bother. And many ASL signs are also intuitive (like the one for hat is the one used by Baby Signs). I think that the Baby Signs people use ASL signs when it is intuitive and make up their own when it isn't.

But to be honest, Sarah has had no trouble with ASL signs that aren't intuitive. One of her fav signs is cracker, where you knock on your elbow (go figure????), and she picked it up right away! I have also found that she "adapts" signs. For example, the sign for dog is to pat you leg and then snap your fingers. For some reason, for dog she has decided that the sign is to pat her chest. Whatever, it works for her and I know her sign means. The thing that is curious to me is that she KNOWS the "correct" sign for dog, since I always use that sign and she recognizes it, but she signs back to me her version of the sign. Sometimes I wonder what's going on in there!

There is also an on-line ASL browser, that will show you the sign for most words: http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/browser.htm

HTH,

[egoldber]

I think that Josh is great age for it right now! I think the videos are especially good for kids at the age where they want to start modeling older children. But younger babies would enjoy it too, I'm sure.

[AngelaS]

We love baby signing!

My oldest dd was born shortly after the introduction of the Baby Signs book. I read it and implemented it with her and my pediatrician's son that I nannied for. My pediatrician was AMAZED at how easy it was, how quickly her son picked it up and how well the communicated.

By age 2, Adrienne had more than 60 signs. She looked for opportunities to use her words and was always eager to learn more. :) I took a Signed English course in college, so I just pulled out my old textbook to look up new signs.

Gabrielle is 14.5 months old and up until now has only been signing: drink, night night, more and all done (which look A LOT alike!). Then today, while reading thru a book we've read a hundred times before, she decided to demonstrate that she can indeed sign: Cat, Bird, Hat AND Fish. I was rolling! She just wanted to wait and show me in her OWN time!

[gremlin44]

I'm a sign language interpreter for Deaf/hard of hearing high school and middle school kids.

Even though I obviously know all the signs, I found Joseph Garcia's book to be helpful with tips/timelines and guidelines.

It is very important to me that the signs I use with my son are the correct ASL signs. As mainstreaming becomes more and more the norm, chances are very good that at some point in your child's life there will be a Deaf student in their class room. Wouldn't it be great if your kid could use the signs they were taught as a baby/child to communicate with that Deaf student? There is no reason to stop signing once a child can speak. Being able to sign with your child allows you to communicate with them through the window, across a crowded room, etc. Plus, they are learning another language, which always helps with brain development and further advancement in learning their native language. More and more high schools and colleges are now accepting sign language for foreign language credits.

I've been signing with my 10 month old son since he was 6 months old. He recognizes the signs I produce and is just barely beginning to start to try to do them himself.