Baby Signs | Imamother

SMG

Mon, Jan 16 2006, 11:28 am

Frumom, I also wonder that same thing. My SIL uses baby signs with my now 16 month old nephew. He is a very bright little boy with no developmental issues. I always wonder why a child with emerging verbal skills really "needs" the signs. And how do the signs help when the mother can't actually be looking at the child (doing dishes, driving in the car, etc.)? My kids never had any signs and at 4 and almost 3 they both have very expansive vocabularies and are quite good at expressing themselves verbally.
Is there anyone here who used baby signs that is now past that stage and can comment?

1stimer

Tue, Jan 17 2006, 11:45 am

Thanks for bringing this thread up. I would like to start this with my 16 month old. Is there any advantage to using a book of signs or can I make up my own as long as I am consistent?

Meema2Kids

Tue, Jan 17 2006, 12:13 pm

1stimer you can make up your own signs or use from a book, whichever is easier.

Children know what words are way before they can physically pronounce them. Signing allows them to use the words. I found that it made a huge difference in understanding what my child wanted. For example, my DS#1 would scream when he wanted something, he did not even know how to point at what he wanted. As soon as we showed him how to sign, he was able to tell us he wanted a banana, cereal, outside, a specific toy, etc. and he stopped screaming. He did not really learn to talk until he was 2 1/2 (he was in speech therapy for this and it was a physical problem NOT related to the signing) so this saved us about a year of screaming. That made me and him happy. Smile

Both of my kids who signed, dropped the signing shortly after they learned to talk. For us, it was a temporary tool to aid communication, though I think there have been studies that show the signing helps in building vocab (don't have sources but look at any baby sign book and it will cite the studies). For DD, I think it did delay her actual speaking a little, but no long lasting problems from that.