First Time To Say PLEASE ~ Chris

Posted on July 22, 2015 by chris

It was thanksgiving weekend and we had family over for dinner.  Naturally, I was a busy Dad showing off all of my son’s baby signing tricks and signs so he was getting plenty of positive attention.  Neither of my sister’s had been able to come up so the cousins weren’t competing for GRANDMA and PAPA’s adulation.  My baby was loving it.  We pulled out all his books and he had a ball reading them with Grandma and doing the signs for her.  Grandma, of course was impressed and couldn’t resist calling him a pretty smart boy.  I had to remind her that any baby can sign, and that she just felt that way because he was more expressive with his language so she could see his mind working more so than other babies.  Whether or not she believes this is another story.

After dinner, we served ice cream which I had taught the sign for some time ago.  My baby really enjoyed doing the sign since we were so animated in teaching him.  ICE CREAM is signed by lapping your tongue in and out and moving your hand as if licking from the top of a cone.  We just added a bit more enthusiasm, and he was right into it!  Throughout dinner I had him do the sign to show Grandma and Papa.  We each got a small bowl and I fed my son his serving.  At the end of his first small serving he asked for MORE and did the sign to the amusement of the entire family.  He quickly finished that and I told him that we were ALL DONE.  I was engrossed in conversation and Courtney noticed that our son was doing the sign for PLEASE.  On his own!  No one had prompted him.  This was the first time he had done the sign without being asked to do so.  It was actually pretty amazing to see him apply the sign so perfectly.  Even though he was on his second serving, we couldn’t resist giving him his third!

Imagine having proper manners at 16 months!  That’s the power of baby sign language.  Over the week previous I’m sure I caught a few THANK YOU’s in there as well.  THANK YOU happens so fast it can easily be missed if you aren’t paying attention.  However, up until his PLEASE for ice cream, it hadn’t fully sunk in.  My son just turned 16 months and was using proper etiquette and had manners.

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Sign Enthusiasm ~ Chris

Posted on July 15, 2015 by chris

When analyzing body language, it’s possible to tell honesty through various cues – although not reliably.  It turns out that the surest way to catch a liar is to look for the relative enthusiasm or commitment to a posture or signal.  If someone is lying, they are usually far more controlled, use smaller movements such as keeping their hands and arms closer to their body, might hunch their shoulders in and so on.  Someone that is being sincere on the other hand, will make big body movements, involve their entire selves in their dialogue and be very animated overall.  They will commit to their beliefs.

The same goes for babies and their signs.  Have you ever noticed that when a baby is hungry, they open their mouths wide?  Have you noticed the same thing when they enjoy the taste of their food?  If you have, then you probably noticed the exact opposite when they didn’t like their food.  They might even turn their heads away rather than forward, purse their lips refusing the food altogether while slouching in their chair.  When they want something, they commit to it and show you with their entire body.

The same enthusiasms can be readily spotted in signs.  If a baby uses big movements for MORE, and repeats them often you can be sure they are really excited to get it.  The opposite is so when a baby doesn’t really want something.  They might still do the sign, but do it less repetitively, use less force and might lack eye contact.  Sometimes when you ask if they want more, they might just go through the motions and do the sign without even mean it.  They’re doing it just because they think you want them to.  In other words, they’re fibbing – in their baby way.  Watch for these subtleties as you sign to your baby.  The silent world is pretty fascinating!

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Words Included In The Baby Sign Language Dictionary ~ Chris

Posted on July 8, 2015 by chris

On first inspection it might seem to make sense to have as many words as possible inside of the baby sign language dictionary, but this it’s so.  For starters, most babies will never learn to sign fluently in ASL.  For the vast majority, signing will be a bridge between babbling and talking.  In my experience and research, a baby will learn about 20-30 words.  Some might only pick up 10-15.  Others, the start signers (read star parents) will learn up to 150 words.  Once baby has learned this many, they understand how language works and have the basic coordination to start adding words.  At this point in time, you’ll be chasing your little guy around trying to steady them to teach them signs.  In other words signing is going to take a back seat to the dynamics of life.  Talking can happen with great ease, it requires little focus and comes naturally within the context of a busy life.

So if you push really hard, you might get over 200 words and if you’re hell-bent, might even sign all 350 plus words.  However, once you reach this level, there are plenty of resources better adapted to teaching sign language that can’t be hand via this program.  There are many programs online that teach the full language including syntax and grammar that babies don’t require.  The baby sign language program is just a way to introduce key words to your baby’s life.  That’s why it includes words for things that most babies find interesting.  If the dictionary had all the words, then the ones that are easiest for a baby to do would get muddled with the rest and so you’d be left at a greater disadvantage.

In other words, more isn’t always better.  The baby sign language dictionary is tailor-made to the needs of babies and includes those words which are most likely to be adopted.

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What If I Don’t Know The Sign Or There Isn’t One? ~ Chris

Posted on July 1, 2015 by chris

Sometimes our baby requests a sign which catches us off guard.  Instead of making a sign up, you can explain to your baby that you just don’t know and then look it up as soon as you possibly can.  Depending on your baby’s age, this might do.  An older baby is much more likely to remember their interest and pick up the sign later, but a younger baby with a shorter memory, might forget.  This means you’ve lost the teachable moment.  What do to?

Well, first of all you might just say the word out loud.  Even though your baby won’t be able to say a word, he’ll at least know the verbal label.  Just as baby’s pre-sign are still benefiting from watching a parent sign, a pre-verbal baby still benefits from hearing the word spoken – this is a given.  If your baby habitually surprises you, you might take the time to learn some bigger categories to prepare yourself.  What I mean by “categories”, is for example, the sign for ANIMAL.  That way when your baby wants to know the sign for KANGAROO and you don’t know it, you can just do the sign for ANIMAL and then explain that you’ll look up the specific sign later on.  You can also learn the sign category for all sorts of other things too.

Sometimes you come across words that don’t have signs.  These are usually fingerspelled and include names of people, places, and so forth.  These you would usually just say out loud, but you can also try fingerspelling them at the same time.  You might find that your baby will actually imitate you as you do this.  In fact, this is how my son began fingerspelling as he made the sign for T.V. which is fingerspelled “T” and “V.”  All along we figured there was no way he’d be able to do it, but sure enough he made his own approximation and it got the job done!

So never underestimate your baby’s abilities, you just might be surprised by how much he remembers and what he finds important.

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Thomas vs. Chuggington ~ Courtney

Posted on June 24, 2015 by chris

We allow our son limited TV viewing when we change his diaper, and because that happens at various times during the day, we have managed to become familiar with several shows.  One of those is Thomas and Friends.  Our little guy enjoys the theme song and, because he loves everything that goes, the trains fascinate him.  The live action model animation of the older series is very cool, too.  However, when our son started to wake up crying and answer our inquiries with “Hum” (his early pronunciation for Thomas), we decided to pay a bit more attention.  I know some of you, like so many parents and children, will be huge fans of Thomas and Friends.  I am writing this knowing you may not agree, but I have to say that I do not like this show.  I have not watched very many episodes (and none in full), but it appears that the plot of each one revolves around someone getting “cross” and displaying an angry facial expression.  When I watched it from my son’s perspective, those train faces did look pretty scary.  The problems always get resolved, but for little ones who can’t follow the narration, they’re left with the visual images.  Perhaps older kids can appreciate it more.

We’ve recently come across a series that is also about trains, but is much more kid-friendly, as far as I’m concerned.  Chuggington is a cute computer-animated series about three “trainees” who learn a valuable life lesson in each 10-minute episode.  There are no angry faces, so our little guy gets his train fix without the nightmares!

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