OMG, my son is a baby-signing genius!

424 Views 6 Replies 7 Participants Last post by KC in KS, Apr 5, 2006

Shaunam

Discussion Starter · Apr 5, 2006

Okay, so not really.

He's a very average 14.5 month old, but I have to brag anyways.

I've been trying to teach DS signs. He pats my chest to nurse, signs "drink", "where did it go?", and just recently leaned "fish" (we use mouth open and close, lip-smacking for fish).

I taught him fish by pointing to the fish that is embroidered on the back of his wool diaper cover. He caught on quickly, but didn't seem interested. 2 hours later, he crawled into my lap, patted my chest and signed fish. I thought he needed to nurse, so I pulled up my shirt. He YANKED my shirt back down and SLAPPED my chest and was frantically smacking his lips. It took me a full minute to realize that there was a shark on my shirt! It looked nothing like the fish on his diaper cover, but he knew that it was in the same category.

Then today (2 days after that happened) he saw me looking at a wool cover on-line and he started signing fish. I looked all over for a fish but didn't see one. I said "I don't see a fishie, sweetie. Where do you see a fishie?" He was very persistant about it though. It took me like 3 minutes to realize that the cover I was looking at looked a lot like *his* cover with the fish embroidered on it!

And then he went to his room and brought me a puzzle piece with a fish on it.

I think my kid is smarter than me already!

This was like our "break through" with signing. I think he's just realized "hey, I can actually communicate!" He's been copying every little thing we do for the last 2 days!

I'm giddy with excitement. Can you tell???

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faithnj

· #2 · Apr 5, 2006

Congratulations, Shauna!

I'm so happy for you! It feels really great when you finally make a communication breakthrough with your baby. Keep up the good work, and enjoy!!!

Faith

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anthasam

· #3 · Apr 5, 2006

Isn't that the best feeling ever???!!!

DD had a similar breakthrough at 11 months and she's been picking up new signs every day!!!

It's so great to see what they think about and what interests them -- DD seems to have a fascination with birds!

Congrats to you and your son!!

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chinaKat

· #4 · Apr 5, 2006

It's so exciting when they make cognitive leaps!

I remember when I taught DD a "sign" for "doggie" -- I showed her a picture of a dog in a book (a cartoon Boynton drawing, no less) and she learned to make a panting noise for a dog.

The next day DH was walking on the beach with DD and they saw some real dogs, and she made the sign. I was surprised she made the connection!

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bricorssk

· #5 · Apr 5, 2006

Its so fun when they actually use the sign correctly, even better when they use one for the 1st time. Love this age!

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peaceful_mama

· #6 · Apr 5, 2006

I'm LOVING DS's language leaps at the moment too...we're up probably well past 50 words and signs--he usually sign*and* attempts the word. What I'm loving at the moment is when he walks up and intently says things like "Oooh-go-bah-ga-CAR!!!" It *sounds* like a real sentence, just the only thing you can understand is 'car' or 'ball' or whatever. ("Car" is a new favorite word.) And he's just discovered the attention-getting ability of showing everyone where his bellybutton, nose, ears, mouth, and hair are. We're working on 'eyes'.

What amazes me with that body parts thing is he just didn't care until a couple weeks ago--after hanging out with his then-belly-button-obsessed 20 month old friend. Once he got "bellybutton" then suddenly his nose was pretty cool too, and within literally a DAY and once or twice of me asking and showing, he is now able to accurately point to 5 parts and is working on 'hands' (clapping) and eyes.

This is just SO MUCH FUN!! It's something new every day, and now he seems to just pick it up IMMEDIATELY...like the sign for 'apple' too. He had been calling all round fruits 'apple' for a word, even though he will accurately SIGN 'orange.' (He LOVES oranges.) had no clue why, as he didn't particularly care for actual APPLES--that is, until I bought these little reddish with some green organic ones at the HFS. I have to say, they are quite honestly the best apples *I've* ever eaten. DS had some and fell in LOVE--I showed him the sign for 'apple' and he immediately started signing it--INSTEAD of more LOL so I couldn't get confused I guess! The next time, there it was again along with the word.

ok I'm pretty darn proud of him...

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KC in KS

· #7 · Apr 5, 2006

DD is in the stage where she's signing to tell us about things she sees. Sort of a play-by-play commentary to her day.

It's so much fun (and sometimes quite a challenge!) to figure out what's she's spotted.

Just this morning, driving in the car, she started talking about the "ball". Now, we were in a fairly wooded, deserted area. There were no balls to be seen! Then DH had a flash of inspiration - the sun had just come up, a big orange BALL in the sky!

I love seeing how her mind works.

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