There’s a period in your baby’s development when they suddenly begin to add words to their vocabulary. If your baby doesn’t sign, then his first words are his primary means of communication besides what he’s been able to scrape together through other non-verbal channels (which may be many and varied – children will get their point across in creative ways if you don’t help them get specific). While he’ll enjoy his newfound ability to speak with precision, it will pale in comparison to the ability to communicate secured by signing babies.
A signing toddler is one who will combine several words into sentences as he’s beginning to add spoken words to his vocabulary. He’ll do this through his signing vocabulary which can include hundreds of words – so long as you’re willing to teach him. By this time he might only have 10 or so spoken words. As your signing toddler begins to add spoken words he’ll immediately combine them with his signed words to tell all sorts of tales. When he can’t say a word well out loud, he’ll combine it with a sign as clarification.
If you’ve never witnessed a signing toddler before, be prepared to be amazed by how communicative a new talker can be. As your baby pushes through this speaking milestone, he’s more quickly able to create small sentences of 2, 3 and sometimes even 4 words. As my son turned 22 months, he was routinely talking about what he was seeing in real life action and also what he’d seen days before. It was obvious what he found interesting and also obvious how well he was recalling things that happened a long while ago.
If you’re really keen on getting to know your child, I can’t recommend signing enough. The pay-off in signing is continuous – starting at the first exposure to signing and your connection with your baby, straight through to the first signed word, then into spoken words and sentences, and finally in the form of better reading comprehension and a better understanding of language as your baby graduates to childhood.
Start signing today!