Teaching Signs By Popping In A DVD ~ Chris

Posted on April 23, 2014 by chris

I’m not going to run this thread against any one company.  My point is pretty general and encompasses all media inclusively.  I just don’t think you should outsource baby sign language to a television.  When we’re so caught up with pawning just about everything we do to someone else including growing, harvesting and often serving our food, repairing our cars, renovating our houses, making our clothing, and on and on.  You can probably dream up specializations for all things.  We’re in an era where someone has turned everything people used to do themselves, into a job done for other people.  Did you know some people even hire house cleaners!  Not far fetched is it?  How about home organizers and designers?  Personal stylists and assistants?  Seems we can’t, or won’t do much for ourselves anymore.

However, teaching baby to sign can be a salvation for parents – if they want it to be.  Signing is something you and your child should do together.  It shouldn’t require outsourcing in any passive sense, it shouldn’t involved directing a baby to watch a television screen where a host instructs for you.  When the DVD runs, there’s no one going to interact with your baby, even if baby buys that illusion ‘hook and line’ because they don’t know any better.  Please, don’t let kids think that TV is the only thing that cares about them.  Please don’t outsource such a wonderful chance at connecting with your baby one-on-one.  Communication is something you and your baby do together.

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Grandma Is Sold On Baby Sign Language! ~ Chris

Posted on April 16, 2014 by chris

I can’t say for certain whether or not Grandma (my mom) was totally supportive of our efforts to sign with our boy, but I will say that once he had reached 20 months, the benefits of signing began obvious even to her.  Not all people are opened to new ideas, and usually with age comes a certain level of inflexibility – shall we say.  However, Grandma became more and more vocal about the increased ability to communicate that signing permitted.

The most frequently cited reason for “the terrible twos” is a lack of ability to communicate thoughts.  However, signing gives babies and toddlers an avenue to express themselves clearly.  There are many specific techniques presented in the online Definitive Sign Language course so I won’t get into these now, however, signing can be a huge advantage in quelling toddler blow outs.  A signing baby can sign well over 100 words by 18-20 months whereas a baby who is without signs might struggle by with 50 words or fewer.

Picture yourself, emotions running high, inability to feed and cloth yourself or take care of any of your basic desires….with your mouth taped shut so you couldn’t ask for help!  I can put myself in those shoes….I’d be throwing a tantrum too!

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Teaching My Two-Year-Old Nephew To Sign ~ Chris

Posted on April 9, 2014 by chris

Not so long ago I taught my nephew who was a bit older than 2-years-old at the time a few signs just for fun.  My sister had introduced a few signs to his younger brother, but wasn’t doing it in any serious way.  I ended up teaching Rowan APPLE, MORE and ALL DONE in a matter of minutes.  He got pretty excited by the whole deal and was running around saying “Uncle Chris! Uncle Chris” then signing and saying APPLE, APPLE!

Despite knowing how to say the words, he found it quite amusing to do the signs.  Being not quite verbal yet, but starting to pick up steam, I could see that he could use signs even at his age.  While he could say quite a few words, at times he was hard to understand.  Had he had some additional signs, he could clarify what he was aiming to say.  On more than a few occasions, I couldn’t make out what he was getting at.  It didn’t bother him all that much, but I could see that he was really fighting to connect with me.  I tried my best to work through what he was saying, and thankfully, we could spend some time together and enjoy his toys and books, but it would have been much more enjoyable had we been able to chat a bit more easily.

Having experienced this first hand, I would highly recommend teaching signs to toddlers at age 2.  I would say that if your toddler isn’t at least 50% clear in most of he is saying then signs will be a great help.  We all know what it’s like to be misunderstood and you can imagine that being a toddler and trying to voice something wouldn’t be much different.  Considering that teaching a sign to a toddler can take mere seconds, it’s any wonder why not all parents take the time to teach a sign or two.

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How Many Signs Can A Baby Learn? ~ Chris

Posted on April 2, 2014 by chris

This is a question many signing parents put out when they first begin on the baby signing journey.  To answer it, you’ll have to ask yourself how many signs you’re willing to teach, because eventually, your baby will learn each and every one of those!

Every baby can learn all of the signs.  However, not all babies will learn them as fast as other babies.  For example, my son picked up over 150 signs well before his 20 month mark.  He might have stopped at 100 or even 50, but his parents didn’t give up.  As his interests developed and his world expanded, so did his desire to pick up signs.  We just kept adding more.  The fact of the matter is that babies are like sponges, soaking up everything that is happening around them, so if signing is one of those things, then your baby will pick this up too.

Most parents will stop at around 20 or so signs.  This might be because the honeymoon phase has warn off and signing takes a backburner to other more pressing issues and stresses.  Perhaps Mom has to go back to work or Dad isn’t as interested as he was before in helping.  Some parents have lots of help from family – Grandparents, and other have help from older siblings.  These are all factors in how many signs your baby will learn.

Once you reach a certain threshold your baby begins to understand the rules of signing and starts to pick things up in what seems like an instant.  I’ve been able to teach my 19 month old a sign in about 5 minutes and yet other times I think he’s not paying attention, but when I quiz him later on, he repeats the lesson (and sign) back to me!  Here I was thinking he was playing with his trucks when all along he was dividing his attention.  So while early learning might seem like hard work, rest assured, that later signing will become second nature.

The bottom line is that if you want your baby to sign over 100 words, he will.  With only rare exception it’s completely up to you!

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Signs Looking The Same ~ Chris

Posted on March 26, 2014 by chris

It wouldn’t be uncommon to have a dozens signs that all look the same when done by your baby.  Babies have very poor fine motor coordination.  Some toddlers even carry this into childhood and by the time they reach school aged, are still struggling to control their fingers and hands the way they’d like to.  ASL is not designed for babies at all.  Some early sign programs stressed this and modified signs so that babies can do them easier.  However, more recent programs, ours included discarded this in favour of learning a real language ASL.

The reason we do this is because it’s used around North America and so your baby will be understood by more than just his family.  Since there isn’t a universally accepted baby sign language, then it’s the best we can do.  That means some signs will look very similar.  Arms flapping can sometimes take on the meaning of more than 20 signs!  What should you do?  Well, there’s not much you can do.  If your baby really thinks he’s doing the sign, and does it each time he sees the object or hears the word being said, then to him, he’s doing the sign properly!  My advice is to just continue to do the sign correctly by modeling it for him.  Eventually he’s going to do it right.  My second piece of advice is to look to the context in which signing is taking place as this will help you discover what your baby is singing about.

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