Another toddler signing question

[newmothermary]

Miles just turned one and loves to mimic. We just started watching Baby Signing Times and he enjoys seeing the los sign in the dvd. He automatic mimic a bunch of signs he sees the los doing. My question is, how long did it take your toddler to sign consistently and with purpose. Right now Miles is just having fun mimicking and not really retaining or understanding the meaning behind each sign.

TIA

[calebsmommy25]

I've never used any dvd's for signing, but do sign with my son. We started when he was around 6ish months with some simple signs, it took a couple of months to catch on. Some he found easy, milk, more, certain animal signs, etc. Some took a bit more time, please, thank you, etc. Any time I know a sign, I incorporate it into our daily routines and conversations. Using signs for everything, all throughout the day, and being very consistent helped him pick up alot. He now uses words and signs interchangeably and together. It really is awesome. I am such a huge advocate of signing with our children.

[RebeccaWo]

We started with the Signing Times DVDs when DD was around 6-9 months. For a long time she would sign "milk" or "diaper" because when she'd nurse I'd repeat the sign, same with diaper changes. It wasn't until 15-16 months that she'd pick up multiple signs each time we watched a DVD. I try to sign with her as much as possible and that definitely helps. But 15-16 months something clicked for her, it's really been incredible to watch her progress which has just bloomed.

[MamaPhD]

I started signing with DD at ~12 mo, and she is 16 mo. We did not do DVDs. I just looked up signs on line and taught her the words she is interested in. She always signs purposefully, i.e. she will sign "water" if there is a puddle, or if she is thirsty, or if she wants to go play by the swimming pool. She won't sign words just to do it.

My guess is it's the context in which they learn the sign. I always only sign purposefull, and DD understood it that way. I won't sign "water" just to teach her that hand movement, if there's no water around. But watching DVDs, they just go through a whole bunch of signs that are not relevant at the moment (or for you/baby) - at least, that was my feeling, which is why I decided against using DVDs for sign teaching. Like, they always do "banana", but DD doesn't not eat it ever! Your kid probably thinks it's a dance DVD, you know? I've also read you shouldn't ask them to sign out of context (like, asking "honey, what's the sign for banana?" in the bedroom where there is no banana) just to drill them. So, since your kid is familiar with hand motions of the signs, why not continue signing with him in the right context? Then he will recognize it better.

[ShyDaisi]

Help give him the context. If he makes a sign, acknowledge that he made it, name the sign, show him what it is if you can, and maybe add a comment about it...Like if he signs apple - "Oh, I see you are signing apple! Apples are good aren't they? Look, we have a green one. Did you know they can be red, too? Would you like to have an apple for a snack today?" - And, don't forget to sign back to him

[mckittre]

I haven't used DVDs, but I think for us it wasn't so much how much time it took to learn them, but when the learning finally "clicked." I started doing a few signs around 6 or 7 months. He recognized them, but didn't do any back until 11 months. It was slow for awhile. At 12 months he knew 3, at 13 months he knew around 8.
Then, a couple weeks ago something amazing happened. Between 13 and 13.5 months (literally just the last two weeks), the idea of sign language suddenly clicked with him, and he started learning multiple words per day, almost as fast as I can teach him. (his first 7 verbal words/animal sounds have also come in this time period). He knows over 30 now, and my main limitation is learning them myself.
So, I guess what I mean to say is that "how long" is kind of the wrong question. He'll probably surprise you one of these days and learn the whole mess of signs you've been showing overnight, but it's hard to know when that might be.

[newtomotherhood]

It was the same with DD, at about 12 months it was like bang they all clicked and now I have trouble keeping up with her learning new signs! She learns multiple signs a day and I am not sure which ones to teach her next!
So yea it was more like an explosion!

[almadianna]

Originally Posted by newtomotherhood

It was the same with DD, at about 12 months it was like bang they all clicked and now I have trouble keeping up with her learning new signs! She learns multiple signs a day and I am not sure which ones to teach her next!
So yea it was more like an explosion!

same for us. we went from having a child that signed "more" and "milk" to having a child that was teaching us signs within 2 weeks.

[dachshund mom]

We go to a biweekly mom's group where we sing signing songs. DD is 12 months and I've been doing the signs for a couple months, but not regularly.

She does "more" and "please" on her own, though they both seem to mean "I want something". Like she'll see a toy on the counter and sign more and point to it. She also does "dog" if she wants her stuffed dog, but says the word dog in reference to our real dogs.

She'll do "all done, milk, and eat" if I say the words, and she knows what they mean, but she won't initiate it. I just started trying "drink, outside and potty". Those are all that we're doing.

She's pretty verbal, so I stopped doing ones that she can say (mommy, daddy, help, shoes). I'm only doing the signs I think will be useful. We aren't doing the animals, fruit, airplane, or things like that.

[sapphire_chan]

We didn't do airplane, and she says 'plane! and does her own sign. I think she is more confident that we know what she means if she signs too. And it's true, a lot of her words sound like each other or like her usual babble unless we've got the context of a sign.

I don't use as many signs as she does, because she can understand me, but it's really helpful to have exposed her to a ton of signs so that *she* can feel understood.

[sapphire_chan]

Originally Posted by MamaPhD

I started signing with DD at ~12 mo, and she is 16 mo. We did not do DVDs. I just looked up signs on line and taught her the words she is interested in. She always signs purposefully, i.e. she will sign "water" if there is a puddle, or if she is thirsty, or if she wants to go play by the swimming pool. She won't sign words just to do it.

My guess is it's the context in which they learn the sign. I always only sign purposefull, and DD understood it that way. I won't sign "water" just to teach her that hand movement, if there's no water around. But watching DVDs, they just go through a whole bunch of signs that are not relevant at the moment (or for you/baby) - at least, that was my feeling, which is why I decided against using DVDs for sign teaching. Like, they always do "banana", but DD doesn't not eat it ever! Your kid probably thinks it's a dance DVD, you know? I've also read you shouldn't ask them to sign out of context (like, asking "honey, what's the sign for banana?" in the bedroom where there is no banana) just to drill them. So, since your kid is familiar with hand motions of the signs, why not continue signing with him in the right context? Then he will recognize it better.

And for us it was the opposite. I signed relevant words as they occurred and dd didn't give a rats patootie about them, but one time through with seeing kids sing and dance and sign and she started signing and saying "cup" when she wanted water. She also started *finally* using the signs I'd been doing with her.

Anyway, after observing that, I checked a bunch of Signing Time dvds out of the library right away.

She'd mimic as she watched the DVDs, but outside of watching it she only uses them as she has an interest (in a few cases not until 3 weeks later and with signs that she seemed to ignore as the DVD was playing. )

[lactatinggirl]

We never did any DVDs, but when I started signing "milk" to Peanut at 5 months, she understood what it meant within a couple weeks (would cry and pull at my shirt when I asked her if she wanted it). She didn't actually sign it back until she was probably 11 months though. Really what helped her signing was taking a Sign 2 Me class. We're 6 weeks in and she has three times as many signs as she did when we started.