Seeking Moms Who Practised Baby and Toddlers Sign Laguage

I began ASL (American Sign language) with my son around the age your daughter is. It has worked splendidly, and did NOT hinder his speaking, as some said it would. I did not use a book, but I used www.aslpro.com a free site that has mini videos of every word and phrase you can think of, and you can pause and replay them so you can get the sign, "just right". I have found it to be an invaluable tool in teaching myself and my son sign language. Good luck and God bless you and yours.

Hi O.,

We started teaching our daughter (now 15-months) sign language as soon as she came home from S. Korea at 8.5 months old. I figured it would cut down on the frustration of not having a common language, and would give her an opportunity to express herself.

The books I have I found on the clearance table or at consignment sales. The most helpful so far has been the book with the most basic signs: "Baby Signing" by Andrea Fixell and Ted Stafford. It covers finger spelling, more, milk, eat, mommy, daddy, some fruit and other foods, house pets, things outside (tree, flower), emotions (love), and manners (please, thank you), etc. If I ever find the other book I'll amend my post with the title.

We've heard great things about the Signing Times DVDs, but I'm not sure if they make them for regions other than North America. I'm actually watching Baby Einsteins First Signs as I type because E. loves it- lets me do cool things like make dinner and do the laundry ;)

One thing I'd be sure to do is be consistent with signs and not do too many at once. We started with more, milk and eat, and reinforced it over and over while we fed her. She got please and thank you pretty easily (and just wait; the sign for thank you is a lot like blowing kisses! :) We add more as she masters her new words but do not push. (Not that there's any way to push a toddler ;)

Oh! I should also mention that E. will also say about eight words in English and two-three in Korean. I really don't think it's hindered her speaking at all!

Best of luck and have fun!

-R.

We started signing at 6 months with our now 3 1/2 YO daughter. Today, her vocabulary is AMAZING - maybe there's a link, maybe not, but it was fun anyway! I used Sign 2 Me also, and it's great. It's a lot of work to learn to sign a whole song, but small children (actually, all people) respond really well to things they learn to music. Sign 2 Me also focuses heavily on the kinds of activities and toys that babies know.

I also picked up a simple ASL dictionary, just for those signs that AREN'T baby-related. Today, I no longer sign with my daughter, but I do with my nephew! And in a year or 2, I will with my niece! Good luck, and have lots of fun with signing.

Hi O.,

We did baby signing with both our kids, and my only regret is that I didn't do more!!! I started both kids around 7-8 months. My first child turned out to have unintelligible speech, requiring surgery at age 3 to help her talk, so I was so glad I'd done the signing. She also turned out to be a special needs child. My 2nd child turned out to have a very high IQ - he picked up his first signs a little bit quicker than his older sister had done BUT of course he had mummy and sister signing to him. As you can see, I have 2 very different children, and signing was great with both of them.

I used one package with my daughter, and then because I was bored by the time #2 came along 3 yrs later, I bought another package with more songs (my daughter ended up knowing 2 signs for some words, as one was based on ASL and the other on BSL).

One reason for choosing to sign, was that I was raising the kids bilingually, and I thought it would help them, because every item or concept would have 1 sign, even if the words were differend (eg sofa/couch/settee that's 3 words in just 1 language for the same item, then add the words in another language, that's 5 words for 1 item. Having 1 sign helped). Both my children were found to have excellent language skills (even the one with speech difficulties).

I used:
Sign-2-Me by Garcia. This comes from America and is based on ASL. I liked that it had a 'dictionary', a video (I'm sure they do DVD's now), and a wipeable chart you could use for the babysitter so that if the baby signs, they can look up what it means in seconds, or if they want to sign to your child, they can see which signs the baby knows.

Sing and Sign. This is from the UK and has LOTS of songs. It is based on BSL.

My kids watched both a lot on the telly, they loved it.

I know many people in the USA who use Signing Times, it seems to be popular.

I hope this helped.
A.
(we keep moving between the UK and Belgium)