Sign Language Leads to Spoken Language

When I was a student at the University of California at Davis, I took a course with professor Linda Acredolo, whose research lead to Baby Signs: How to Talk With Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk, a book that preceded and probably sparked the baby signing trend. I was fascinated by the idea of babies being able to communicate in infancy and promised myself to teach my children sign language. 

My daughter's first sign -- "more"

When my daughter was born I got a few books and attended a few signing play dates but I had difficulty figuring out the signs from two-dimensional drawings. Still, I used the simple ones; milk, mom, ball, car, dog. I had a total of about twenty words I used with my daughter. The mistake I made was not being patient or persistent. I stopped signing when my daughter was about seven months old because she wasn't signing back to me. I should've read the literature which explains that most children start signing back at around eight months. 


When my son was born the following year I decided to give it a serious go and signed up for an ASL (American Sign Language) class with my husband. It turns out ASL, real sign language, is much simpler to learn than what some call "baby sign language." In the first day of class we learned about thirty words and I felt comfortable enough to start using them all day, every day. My daughter started signing right away too. Though she had started speaking at ten months, she seemed excited to be able to sign and be understood by us more often. To my surprise, she immediately started speaking a lot more words too. Signing expanded her vocabulary and her confidence.  

My daughter's favorite sign. 

My son started signing for milk when he was five-months-old. At six months he started speaking -- "mama, papa, avion (airplane)." By the time he was just over one year-old my son was speaking in complete sentences. People thought he was a midget because he spoke so well. I credit his fluency and ease with words to genes of course -- his dad and I are geniuses. Ha, ha! In all seriousness, I truly believe both of my children started speaking early because we signed with them. 

"Hurt" - one of the most helpful signs
for babies and their parents. 

It seems the act of signing helps children "get" words more easily. Something clicks in their brain when they see mom signing and speaking at the same time. I also believe the ability to communicate long before they are physically ready to formulate spoken words, encourages them to communicate more and to actually speak earlier. 




Seeing my children's excitement and the positive effect it was having on our level of communication, I purchased the Signing Time DVD series. I had seen other signing DVD's but this is the best I found (and it was recommended by our ASL teachers). 


I love the fact that the Signing Time series was created by a mom whose child was born deaf -- a true labor of love. It's easy to learn signs from these videos because they show multiple examples of each sign. My kids love watching them because the signs are taught not only by Rachel, the creator, but by babies and children as well. The songs are cute and pleasant and I love, love, love that the videos are also available in Spanish. 

"Thank you," one of my favorite signs. 

I'm happy and proud that we taught our children sign language and believe their ability to communicate with us decreased the number of tantrums and the level of frustration experienced by both them and us (my husband and me). Now that they speak fluently we don't use signs as much but there are a few, like "be careful," I love to use at parks instead of screaming, and every once in a while we watch the Signing Time videos and review so as not to forget it all. 

"Careful." 

Product link: Signing Time - http://www.signingtime.com/
Image credits: abcmesign.com, athensparent.com, littlesignersclub.wordpress.com, www2.ljworld.com, lifeprint.com