Baby sign - how many words/signs?

[lovepiggie]

Hi there!

Just a question for all of you who sign with your babies - how many signs/spoken words does your baby say? Do they match? (As in, does your baby say the word for 'cat', and the sign as well?)

My DS (11 months) knows 10 words, and 7 signs,
He says mama, dada, cat, dog, bird, no, book, more, banana, hi, bye.. and he signs milk, fan, light, change, more, eat, book... So aside from "book", and "more", there's no overlap.

Is this typical?

[Sandyandhaley]

I think that is pretty typical. My daughter is 15 months and was very verbal very early. That being said, with words that she knew the signs for, like more, tree, etc, those words only came out in a crazy evolution in the past two months. It is actually really cool, from doing just the sign, to doing the sign and saying mo, to just mo, to moy, to more. The words that I would say, she would imediately try to imitate them, the words that she signed kind of evolved and came on later.

[Norasmomma]

My DD was highly verbal from a very young age, at 6 months she was saying mama, dada. At 7 months she said "hi" to a lady I know at the store, she also did her first signs at 7 months, eat and more.

By 11 months she had a number of words and signs. Honestly I can't remember how many

DS is stubborn he does milk and that's about it, LOL...He does his own signs for more and all done. He does say mama, dada, wa(water), ba-ba(bottle). Today I swear he said Da for dog.

He just isn't that into signing

[kismetbaby]

My 10 month old has no actual words yet. . .or none that we can understand.

But he signs: dog, book, water, ball, and he waves hi/bye.

His new big thing as of the last couple weeks is pointing--he can clearly tell me what he wants many times just by pointing. Which isn't really encouraging talking, but it has really expanded his sense of communication.

[kayabrink]

With my older ds, I initially thought he wasn't picking up the words for the signs he knew. But, on paying closer attention, I figured out he was "saying" many of the words, they were just very difficult to understand. This was between 13 mo (first spoken word, other than the basic mama/dada/nana=nurse) when he said 'cat', a word he knew the sign for, and around 18 mo, by which time he was speaking in sentences. By about 15 mo he knew the spoken words for all the signs he knew, but he continued to sign heavily until age two. Caveat- we're a bilingual household, so YMMV- I think your ds will figure thinhd out faster, probably very soon. I wouldn't worry as long as you cosistently say the words as you sign them.

[Skrimpy]

That sounds pretty typical to me. My DS is 21 months now and he is really starting to say a lot of words - but he has been signing a lot longer. At first he would just sign and said a word here or there (Mama, bye-bye, Dadda... typical baby words). Now his vocad is just exploding and he says words really well (I think better than his sibs did at his age). I think all babes are so different, but it sounds like he's doing great for his age.

[Comtessa]

Originally Posted by Skrimpy

...At first he would just sign and said a word here or there (Mama, bye-bye, Dadda... typical baby words). ...I think all babes are so different, but it sounds like he's doing great for his age.

DD started signing at 10 months, but didn't say any recognizable words until close to 1 year. At 15 months she has about a dozen signs and about five words, and none of them overlap. (Oh, except she's started saying "meh" when she signs "milk" and I think she's trying to say it.) She just doesn't seem to want to talk! But she sure knows how to communicate, nonetheless, so perhaps she just hasn't had much need for the words yet. For an 11 month old it sounds like your LO is doing fabulous!!!