Who here is signing?

[happyday8598]

and how old is/are your child/ren??

How many signs have they learned thus far?

How do you tame yourself from bragging to EVERYBODY with a younger child, and/or letting them know of this amazing way to communicate with your children???

How long have you been signing for???

Seems as though there are many people here that have caught onto the signing wagon...

WHEN IS MOTHERING GOING TO WRITE AN ARTICLE ON IT?!??!?! (I'm actually considering submitting one myself!!!)

About us...

I started signing to Caleb when he was about 8 months. At about a year he signed his first sign, milk, and hasn't stopped since!! He's now 20 months old and signs about 40 signs, as well as speaks about 10 words that he signs, and about 5 that he doesn't sign.

I also have a 4 year old that is signing as well, and has picked up all that I know, and has made up about 10 more!!!

I am a server, and sometimes gush to my tables about the advantage of... customers look at me odd when I ask if they'd like a drink, and I'm signing it inadvertantly, and sometimes the conversations starts from that!!!

I'd be interested in hearing about how many people on this board sign with thier children!!!

Love,
Emily

[Elphaba]

we sign!
shoshanna is 13 months old and does the signs for nurse, eat, doggie and up. we started really signing with her at maybe 10 months? i'm not sure really.
we just got an ASL book and are going to start using stuff from there, so all three of us will be adding a new language.

[BlueRoseMama]

us too!

We sign too! Cyan is 16 months and I do baby signs with her... She can do the signs for "water","more", "food", "finished", and "nurse". My mother teaches ASL, so I have been almost fluent all my life. I decided to do baby signs with Cyan instread of ASL, because I realized that she was doing sign, but not MY signs. So I paid attention to her, and tried to learn "her signs" just as I have learned "her language"... it is funny, some are the same, such as "finished", and "water", but others like "more", are only half the sign, and even others like "nurse", and "food" are made up entirly... I just let her go for it and tried to catch up... I am sure between me, my mom, and my older son, she will get the correct signs in time... she is just learing how to comunicate now.

[sozobe]

I'm deaf and have been signing with my dd since birth. We have a picture of her signing "mama" when she was about 4 months old, and she had about 250 signs at 18 months. I lost track after that, but she's fluent, and also is talking up a storm. She goes back and forth or does both.

I had a lot of fun with playground mamas gawping at our conversations when she was very little. It is indeed hard not to brag, and why not?

I'm actually in the process of writing an article about signing with my daughter. It's definitely something that should be more widely known. I've found it incredibly useful on so many different levels. Just one example; it's not that surprising that signing helps ease communication in terms of things like "I want a banana" or "my knee hurts", but I found that my daughter also really wanted me to understand stories she made up. This wasn't a need in the usual sense, but she was so thrilled when I could understand her stories about flying kittens and gorillas in our oak tree (this was at about 17 months, I think.)

That's just not something that comes up often when talking about toddler frustration -- that they want to tell you the _stories_ they've thought of.

[Wildflower]

Yay signing! Serenity is 15 months and does nurse, eat, drink, book, sleep. drive. apple. cat, dog, more, moom, bird, water, rainbow, duck, giraffe, bear, frog, mama, dada, ball, fan, mouse, elephant, flower, tree, all done, let's go, raccoon, cow, fish, sad, frustrated, scared, happy, rock, shoes, hat, horse, star, baby....

It is hard not to brag!

It makes storytime and walk so fun, and I love that she can tell me how she feels and what she wants. We started at 10 months and about 13 months it just took off...she went from about 6 to about two dozen and beyond that month.

So glad I ran across babysigns!

[queen bee]

hi, I haven't posted here forever, so I feel a little funny jumping in here now. (I was very active here before they switched over to this new format a year ago.) This will sound all spammy, but I cant resist sharing this...

Two of my sisters have produced a series of videos/dvds geared to teaching basic ASL to very young children. One of my sisters has a daughter who is deaf and another with serious communication delays due to cerebral palsy and spina bifida. These videos are awesome...great music, animation, totally fun to watch.

http://signingtime.com

Read the "Our Story" section first!

Also gotta add that my sisters are both AP-ing, natural birthing, extended breastfeeding mamas!

slinking back into lurking mode...
queen bee

[Kate]

We sign some with 15 month old ds -- not nearly as much as some of you . . . I am so impressed and look forward to your article(s) in Mothering on the subject!!!

I started when ds was very young -- 6 months -- and probably fell off the wagon by 8 months or so . . . then one day when he was 10 months, a car parked under our window with loud music playing. After 30 seconds or so, they turned their car off . . . ds looked at me and signed "more." This after not having seen it in ages! These little people are so darn smart. (I confess that I told this story (not bragging, of course!!!) to anyone who'd listen.) So we still sign some with him: eat, drink, more, milk. Since he's now got 10-12 words in addition to the signs, we communicate pretty well. I think I will try to do better with the next babe someday.

[Aster]

Boo has a few signs that he uses now. We started around 8 mos, but quit trying back then bc he really didnt ever look at me when i was doing the signs. I think that he's just so attached that at that point mama was just an extension of himself--not really a separate entity. Fast-forward to now, about 6 mos later...boo's definitely developing his own autonomy, so it's easier to teach him signs, and he's more motivated to communicate using words and signs now. The signs that he does use he picks up really quickly.

My fav is *i love you*!! (dh just taught him that one)

[brookelynnp]

We signed with ds starting about 8 months or so maybe even earlier in hopes that he would pick it up but I don't remember him doing it back until 8 or 9 months. He is now 27 months and speaks full sentences unless he is too frustrated or feels he needs the extra emphasis of signs to get his point across. I loved the communication bond that we had with him so early I felt he really appreciated and felt comfert in that he could tell us with out all the frustration what was on his mind.

[comet]

Yes, we sign, too. DD is 14 months. So far our vocabulary is pretty limited. Just mama, daddy, kitty, eat, more, hurt, bird, no more (she made that one up) and a few others. I'm sure she'd learn more if we taught her. I'll check out that website.

[JessicaS]

DD is about 20 months old and we have taught her a few signs. more, please, thank you (which ended up just blowing kisses )milk, I would love to teach her more signs I just really dont know many, I will be sure to check out that website.

[oceanmommy]

We started ASL with DD at about 10 mos. At 13 mos got the book BABYSIGNS which was very very helpful. I think some of the ASL sign were difficult for her little hands, she wound up "making them her own" anyways.

Now she's almost 21mo, and uses many more words than signs. The biggest thing I think is helpful about signs is how you can avoid so much frustration.... our signs are largely devoted to this. We do nurse, hungry, more, pick me up, ... pretty basic stuff, ,but its so helpful on a daily basis, especially when she was younger.

Here is a great site on baby signs SignWithMe.com - this is thier main signs page OOHHH ! they just updated and have tons of new signs, cool. Another fave is Handspeak at Deafworld.org but I just went there and they are having a couple (temporary ?) site problems. They have a special "baby signs" section.


OT T
abimommy, I love your sig...

"A little madness now and then is cherished by the wisest men"- Willy Wonka

I was actually going to put this in MY sig line last week !! I LOVE that movie/book!

[bubbles]

We sign a little and I would definitely persue it further if I have more children. I started with my ds at 8 months old on the advice of a friend who did it w/her kids. We then went on vacation to France, then moved twice and we did not really work with it with all of the changes/commotion going on. Now, at 18 mos it is going great although ds only uses a few signs. DH speaks to him in French part time, and then we also speak English. MIL speaks Spanish. We are probably confusing the poor child, but I hope it all works out. Anyway, I love signing and ds is always so proud of himself when he uses a sign. I think he feels so great about communicating.

[ksmeadowlark]

DS just turned 18 mo and we had been signing since about 8 mo, but didn't see any interest until he was about 13 mo or so. He signs for: more, flower, please, thank you, all done, hungry, nurse

DH has been so blown away at the usage of just these few signs, the first time DS used them with him, he had to call me to ask what they meant! When we take DS out in public, people are really amazed too. Signing with babies is pretty much unheard of by people who don't have young children (based on our encounters).

[Baudelaire]

We do! We do! (absurdly long)

We were watching a documentary on Koko the gorilla when my dd was only a few months old, and I turned to my husband and said, "If a gorilla can learn sign, why can't a baby?" It was about then that I found that there were a zillion other people who had had that same idea earlier than I had, but what was delightful was finding that it WORKED. I started signing with her at two-three months, which was kind've early, and dropped it awhile later mostly out of disappointment at seeing no results, but around 7-8 months, I started up again.

I got a great video series from the library called "We Sign," which features nursery rhymes set to sign (plus colors, animals, the alphabet, numbers, et cetera). I also tried reinforcing certain things: the "milk" sign every time I gave my dd the breast, for instance. One day, she just began signing "milk." I don't know if it was deliberate or a mistake, but either way, I gave her the breast *immediately,* every time. From then, her language development grew exponentially both in ASL and in spoken words.

We stopped counting how many words she knew in ASL and speech by 18 months because we were fairly sure it was close to a thousand total. Even now, when she's a very verbal almost-two, speaking in full sentences, she'll sign for emphasis. Moreover, I still sign to her to clarify certain concepts (e.g., words that sound alike). She's learning to fingerspell, which I think is more of a fine motor ability, but she can already sight-read a decent handful of words, and I credit this ability to the fact that she's been "reading" fingerspelling and sign language for most of her life now.

I can't *tell* you how glad I am that we began to sign to her and really stuck with it. I think it allowed her to develop what I've always thought of as the basic metaphor underlying all language: that X=Y. This gesture (X) equals this thing (Y). This babble from my mouth (X) equals this thing (Y). These lines on the page (X) equal this thing (Y). Once they have that metaphor down, the rest, as they say, is in the details.

I also think ASL allowed her to sort out and categorize her world sooner than she normally would have been able to do. I could point to a eucalyptus, a pine, and a palm, and not only say "tree," but sign "tree" as well, letting her see AND hear that these were all part of the same general group "tree."

Moreover, I know it helps her take a crucial step: reading and remembering. For example, we were reading the Paul Zelinsky "Rumpelstiltskin," and at one point, the miller's daughter is "weeping." I said, "DD, 'weeping means'..." and I traced my fingers down her cheeks in the 'crying' sign. "Crying," she said, and she has NEVER forgotten what "weeping" means. It allows her to "triangulate" information, locking it in place from more than one direction at the same time: it's tactile and visual where speech is only audible.

Sorry to go on and on, but I cannot recommend this enough.

[marchmom19]

just a short note to say we sign too. dh and i are both hard of hearing so naturally we sign with our little one. she is also bilingual (german and english) and its been great to have her sign since she was late in talking due to being bilingual. Now at over 2.5 years she is talking and signing all the time, even makes up her own signs for words. So cute. Hard part though when she cries and that is the time I wish she would sign as I cant understand what she is saying thru those tears.

Feeling words are so important to teach them in sign too. Mad, happy, sad, tired, crying. I really recommend that.

Good luck and happy signing everyone.

stephanie

[Cindi]

I am so envious here. My 27 month ds does not have enough words, and had none until recently...and we never put time into signing. But he signs in his own ways. When he wants to be lifted up he stands in front of me, turn away and lifts his arms up. When he wants to go out he gets my shoes and his shoes. When he wants to nurse he rubs my breast through my clothes...and when he wants food he walks to the fridge. But I sure wish I had learned signs to introduce to him.

Now pregnant, I will have to be more on top of it with the next child.

[tara]

We sign with 12 month old Jackson. We started really early (like 4 months) signing 'more' and 'milk', picked up 'eat' when he started solids. He signed 'more' back at us when he was about 8 months old - throughout an entire meal he was signing 'more' 'more' 'more' all over the place. But, you know what? He hasn't done it since!

But, he does regularly sign 'eat' when he wants solid food now. Or, I will ask him, "Do you want food?" and his response will be an excited wiggle and the 'eat' sign. Also, while he's nursing he will stick his little hand in my face and sign 'milk' to me. Or, he will pull off and sign it to the room with a big fat smile on his face - basically, he's saying, "Hey, everybody - I'm getting milk over here and it's really good!" He doesn't sign 'milk' to request it, though - he still prefers his own 'sign' of yanking my shirt up and digging in... : He signs 'all done', though also prefers his 'sign' of throwing everything off his highchair onto the floor. :

I'm trying really hard to teach him 'help', because he's getting really frustrated and bursting into tears when something isn't working the way he wants it to (he can't get something out of his toybox that he wants, his little walking toy gets stuck on something...), and I would much prefer he could sign 'help' instead of getting so frustrated. I am also working on 'pain', hoping he will someday soon be able to tell us when he hurts.

[clardizabal]

I just started and could use some advice

i just started signing with my 8 month old baby girl. So far i am using the eat, toilet (since i also just started EC), drink and her version of more (which she sometimes does during her meals), i really dont know the process any advice from all your experiences?

Claudia
Mom to hurricane Emilie:

[ani'smommy]

We're signing. DS is 12 months, and for about a month now, he's been doing food, more, water, cat and (his fav) music. We did a lot of signing with his big sister, too.