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Teaching Your Toddler to Communicate with Sign Language


merrily

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My son is autistic and speech delayed. He had over 100 signs before he was 3. It was very difficult to get his testing for services accomplished because the school district had no one who could sign.

/cool story bro

Anyway, baby sign/asl saved us both a lot of frustration.

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She would have blanket trained if she only had two. Hitting your kids = awful mother.

Yeah, I just can't get past the hitting.

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I have JUST started doing this with my grandson. He is 8mos old but we have a 9 yr old who lost all speech at age 3 and is now n/v , we use simple signs with her so why not start signing to him to. I haven't made him sign to get what he wants yet because Ive just started showing him. I'm really hoping he picks up on it quick, I've seen all of the Duggar toddlers sign.. milk and more. Josie was pretty small when she was doing it, I think it is cute. Ive never heard of it causing a delay in speech.

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My fundy brother and SIL are into this. Sadly their little one is now past two and still mostly communicates in signs (a very limited amount, which is all her mother taught her). They greatly encouraged me to teach my children this way, but it wasn't for me. Interestingly, my children have been more talkative/had a wider vocabulary at the corresponding age to their daughter's current age (mine are older, so it wasn't at the same time). But, I believe that children all develop differently, even within the range of "normal," so I'm not judging their daughter nor saying that she wouldn't be talking this *little* even if she hadn't been taught the sign language. It just is what it is.

Teaching signs does not delay the acquisition of spoken language. That is a myth, and I'm sad a lot of parents of children with speech delays fear teaching signs because of it. (Speech therapist here.)

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Teaching children a few signs to encourage language and reduce frustration early in life is nothing weird. I don't see why people are making a big deal over it not being ASL, since obviously that child does not need ASL and true ASL is difficult and anyone who is not part of the deaf community is probably not entirely fluent in it.

I don't think they're saying "the child should be taught sign language, not baby signs!", they're saying "you're teaching the baby just a couple of signs, not an actual language, and the distinction is important."

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It seems weird to teach "please" and "thank you" when you're teaching signs to avoid frustration. I can see teaching them early on because you just want your kids to know those and be polite when they use ASL, but not in the first eight words. But I've never taught baby signs, so maybe that's common?

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I did baby signs from birth with DS (more, out (asking to get out of a chair), milk, sleepy/bedtime, etc. I was semi-pissed but relieved at a little younger than a year when he started saying "more" and then the other words. I will probably do the simple ones with my next little one, too- just in case like PP said, they are a late talker. DS will now sign at 13 months and think it is a hoot.

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Oh god, now you're going to make my cold, black heart melt... I'm off to youtube to see if can find some of this yummy, chubby goodness... swoon.

FWIW, the 'signing time' videos (also, a show on weekend PBS in my neck of the woods) are relatively non "spork to the ear" inducing (relatively. It's sometimes super cheerfully repeattiveand the songs can be a bit twitchy, but it's not like 'Calliou, the whiney bald git' in making me want to lobotomize myself")

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ3bV2SvWI4

(not breaking because, you tube)

(and someone mentioned please and thank you, I 'taught' those just because I was always saying them. Even now, "what's that sweetie? you would like more milk please?" comes out of my mouth a lot during the day.

Although I made a concerted effort to teach signs, so did Mr. Dawbs and my parents...[both of them know a *little* ASL] and my kid absolutely refused to learn it. She did 'more' like 2x and milk 2x and then went to 'various screaming' for the entire 6 month window between when she quit signing and when she started talking. But I think that's because she's a stubborn stinker ;) )

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It seems weird to teach "please" and "thank you" when you're teaching signs to avoid frustration. I can see teaching them early on because you just want your kids to know those and be polite when they use ASL, but not in the first eight words. But I've never taught baby signs, so maybe that's common?

I've known people who teach their kids "please" and "thank you" signs and they basically become the signs for "I want that" and "I got what I want". And the parents think they are special and polite. But a baby has no concept of polite, they just understand that they are communicating/getting what they ask for.

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It seems weird to teach "please" and "thank you" when you're teaching signs to avoid frustration. I can see teaching them early on because you just want your kids to know those and be polite when they use ASL, but not in the first eight words. But I've never taught baby signs, so maybe that's common?

I never understood the concept of purposefully limiting your vocabulary of signs and only teaching a few of them myself. You don't limit your spoken vocabulary, do you? I already knew please and thank you, so when the nieces were young I automatically signed them. Sure, my vocabulary is always going to be limited because I don't actually speak ASL, but if you learn a sign or two a week you'll have quite a few before your kid is able to parrot them back for you.

But I focused more on catching interests than what I urgently thought needed communicating, which might explain why Evangeline's first word was the sign for fish.

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I have seen this done sometimes- I think it's wonderful for children who have delays that will cause them to be late to talk, but my feelings are somewhat mixed with kids who are on track developmentally. I've seen some of those kids start to talk late. Then there was my niece- day care used signs, her parents didn't, so she'd sign and say the word, while most of the kids in her room at daycare were only signing.

It's sort of like my mom, her brother always knew what she wanted and would talk for her, so she started talking late too. She had no reason to learn actual words.

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Again, signs do not cause speech delays.

We're going to have to disagree on this one. Is every child who learns signs going to have delays in speech? No. Will some, yes.

My nephew is 14 months old and has a bigger vocabulary than his cousin who is 6 months older than him. She chooses to sign rather than say words. Neither has any other delays, and all parents are college educated with neither child in day care.

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We're going to have to disagree on this one. Is every child who learns signs going to have delays in speech? No. Will some, yes.

Well, duh. Because some percentage of the population will have delayed speech, and that means some percentage of those who are signed to will have delayed speech. Given that it is common to start kids with delayed speech on signs, and you can't predict who will have speech delays (heck, lots of kids with actual hearing problems slip through the cracks for a few years), where is the harm in getting a head start just in case?

However, you are conflating delayed speech with children choosing to use one form of communication over another. My understanding is that each sign counts as a word. If your little niece has 20 signs and 5 spoken words, that adds up to 25 words. Or if she had 15 words in Finnish and another 15 in English, we don't discount half the words because Finnish is difficult for us to learn as adults and we don't speak it. Well, I don't, anyway.

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Well, duh. Because some percentage of the population will have delayed speech, and that means some percentage of those who are signed to will have delayed speech. Given that it is common to start kids with delayed speech on signs, and you can't predict who will have speech delays (heck, lots of kids with actual hearing problems slip through the cracks for a few years), where is the harm in getting a head start just in case?

However, you are conflating delayed speech with children choosing to use one form of communication over another. My understanding is that each sign counts as a word. If your little niece has 20 signs and 5 spoken words, that adds up to 25 words. Or if she had 15 words in Finnish and another 15 in English, we don't discount half the words because Finnish is difficult for us to learn as adults and we don't speak it. Well, I don't, anyway.

It's actually not my niece- but my nephew has a mix of Korean and English words and I still consider those words, her languages are the same. The issue is that most of society isn't going to know what she's talking about- and as an elementary teacher, I've seen speech issues with children who learned how to speak late.

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We're going to have to disagree on this one. Is every child who learns signs going to have delays in speech? No. Will some, yes.

My nephew is 14 months old and has a bigger vocabulary than his cousin who is 6 months older than him. She chooses to sign rather than say words. Neither has any other delays, and all parents are college educated with neither child in day care.

The kids who exhibit speech delay after being taught signs were likely going to have a speech delay anyway. Vocabulary doesn't necessarily correlate with expressive language. A child may understand and know a lot of words and not speak them, because speech is a different processing and motoric function he may not yet be ready for.

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By the way, it is normal for many bilingual children to take a little longer in talking, because they are processing two language at once. They will eventually catch up to fluency with their single-language peers, assuming they have good models of both languages.

I'm a bilingual speech therapist.

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Two more cutie-pie signing stories:

1. Nursing baby notices that Mommy is talking to somebody, pops off (flashing Mom's boob to the world, but that's babies for you) and exuberantly signs, "MILK!!!!" with a big grin. Hey, he wanted to join the conversation.

2. Hungry baby in distress urgently signs, "MILK," then continues to sign, "Milk" with a relieved expression as he is nursing, and drifts off, eyes fluttering closed, sleepily signing, "milk . . . milk . . . "

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The kids who exhibit speech delay after being taught signs were likely going to have a speech delay anyway. Vocabulary doesn't necessarily correlate with expressive language. A child may understand and know a lot of words and not speak them, because speech is a different processing and motoric function he may not yet be ready for.

And when you get a child who is 3 or 4 who is still signing and not talking then there is a problem. My nephew's cousin is not at that point, and I am sure her parents will intervene, like they had to for my mother. But there are things about learning HOW to say the words and how your mouth and tongue move while saying those words is something that needs to be learned early, or more interventions could be needed.

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Speech is the easiest, most convenient way to communicate. It's easier and faster. Children who CAN speak, will. If a child is not speaking at 3-4, he would not have spoken regardless of signs or lack of signs, except he now would not have any alternative means of communication.

This is like saying that teaching children to crawl will delay walking.

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I taught my son some baby signs it really helped before he started talking. I'm introducing them to my daughter (7 months) but she hasn't started signing back. I'm not as good at doing them all the time though like I was with my son. I really don't think signing delays speech. I typically said the word as I did the sign and when my son did start talking he would say the word as he did the sign finally he dropped the signs.

Also I believe Michelle didn't start blanket training until all the howlers can along. I'm sure she beat all the children but I don't think thre was a blanket involved at first.

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I concur with super-skeptic, although I'm still a student SLP (getting my MA in July, yay!) There's lots of research showing that signing (and using speech devices) actually encourages language and doesn't delay speech. Think about it, they are learning how to use words, even if they aren't speaking them with their mouth, that's a good thing. I only used baby signs with my youngest (my older ones are 14 and 16) and he only learned the sign for "nurse." Which I made up as I didn't know it. I didn't know about baby signs until he was about 8 months and by then he was well on the way to speech so I don't think he was too motivated to learn how to sign, except for asking to nurse. :D He's almost 9 now and rarely quits talking.

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and as an elementary teacher, I've seen speech issues with children who learned how to speak late.

Okay, but how much do you know - and not via anecdotes - about first language acquisition? Unless something is wrong (and you have to work hard to deliberately mess up language acquisition in typically developing children, as far as I know), your students should all have mastered that long before they get to you.

Nobody is denying that problems with learning language can affect a child after they get to school, but so far you have presented no evidence to back up your feeling that learning signs concurrently with English will interfere with the development of speech, and all the actual evidence is against you.

You have a few anecdotes about a few children you know who, being quite young, often sign instead of speaking. I'm sure you've heard this before, but you ought to make it your mantra: the plural of anecdote is not data.

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I haven't read the whole thread (only this last page), and this may have already been brought up.

Babies develop their own signs and sounds with specific meaning well before they are verbal, and are delighted when adults catch on and use them back to them.

My kids had signs they used to make for breast, sounds they used to make to indicate they wanted something, things like that. So I think it's pretty natural for babies to find ways to communicate before they are able to achieve the complex actions required for legible speech. If the parent is teaching signs, they are entering the world of communicating in the way their infant is able to.

But that can't replace speech, and I don't think it often does. The parents I knew who signed with their babies usually said the word as they made the sign and echoed the word back when their baby made the sign, so once the babies could competently imitate the sounds they started putting the words with the actions too.

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