Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Effects of Sign Language on Speech Development

At the beginning of our blog, Linz asked me to write something about signing with your baby. I signed with M from day one and I can't tell you how wonderful the effects were. She was requesting things I could understand at 9 months, way before real words are starting. It's a common misconception (that's luckily dying out) that using sign language will delay speech development when actually it's a bridge-it will almost always help boost vocabulary and development. This week, one of the gals at Tales from the Crib posted a great article about this and signing. I thought you'd be interested. Enjoy!

7 comments:

Linz said...

I was talking to Stephanie about this and wondered, Is it too late to start with my almost 12 mo. old? She doesn't say any words yet and I'm kind of desperate for some kind of communication.

Liz said...

great question! It's NEVER too late! M still uses her signs and she's 19 months. babysigns.com (i think that's the address) has visual pictures of any signs you'll need and the basics: more, milk, eat, all done, are lifesavers!!!! M didn't start imitating until 8-9 months but she recognized them early on (she'd get all excited if I signed "milk" :) so if you show a sign over and over, she'll quickly catch on to "oh, Mommy's asking if I want food!" and get excited and react so you know.

Linz said...

Liz,

I went to babysigns.com and I don't think I saw a place to view signs but I went to one of your previous posts and you mentioned signingbaby.com. That's a good one. I can't find the sign for "all done". Could you describe how to do that one?

Liz said...

oops-thanks for correcting that!
all done-hands together like clapping, sweeping outward and away from each other <---{}---> finished is very similiar-hold hands out in front, shaking several times- does that make sense?? i'm trying to find a link for a visual-i'll get back to you!

Liz said...

This one is good and has a list of signs and descriptions as well as a visual chart you can print out. http://www.signwithme.com/

Stephanie said...

I started doing this, and got lazy with it. I decided recently to pick it back up again, because it would be so nice to have better communication with my 11 mos old. I would especially love for her to learn "all done" instead of tossing her food on the floor, as she currently does...

Jocelyn Christensen said...

You guys need to get the Signingtime videos. They are fantastic! I used them with Guy since day 1 as well, and he is fantastic with speech, signing, and communication as well. The videos are tons of fun and combine music with the signs and they are very logical.

Go to signingtime.com

-Jocelyn