Benefits of Signing with Children

Some of you have asked me if Signing with babies will prevent them from learning how to speak.

Here's the FAQ I've taken from their website. I hope it clears your concerns.

Personally, Sarah started talking very early. With Baby Signing, I found that Sarah had an extra avenue to express her needs. There are some words toddlers just can't say so easily like "Shoes". With signing, she tells us very easily when she wants to go outside to play by signing for her shoes. It has prevented many temper outbreaks in this case. Even for words she can say like "Milk", she would emphasize her point by adding sign language to her words.

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Many people have sent us questions regarding our video and the learning of American Sign Language (ASL). Rachel Coleman, one of the mothers behind the creation of Signing Time, understands these concerns and questions.

Rachel has a daughter, Leah, who is Deaf. Rachel had to research and learn the answers for herself as she taught her daughter. Rachel's sister Emilie is also teaching her hearing children how to sign - with remarkable results. Both of these mothers' research and experiences demonstrate that all children can benefit from the learning of ASL, whether they can hear or whether they are Deaf. Rachel feels very strongly about the need to teach children everywhere to sign and shares her knowledge and experience with you here.

How early can I start to sign with my child?

Start signing now! You can sign "milk" to your newborn when it's time to nurse or time for a bottle. Sign "sleep" at nap and bedtimes. Take your baby's hands and help them sign "more" in-between each spoonful. This will help integrate signs into your daily routine. Soon the repetition and reinforcement will occur naturally as your infant grows. It will also help your infant realize that crying is not the only way of communicating.

My child is already talking. Why should they learn ASL?

Learning a second language is fun and has many developmental benefits. ASL stimulates learning through different senses. Sign language is a blessing for children that are "visual", "spatial" or "tactile learners." Learning a second language raises your child's IQ. One in ten Americans have some degree of hearing loss. Knowing a few signs can give your child the confidence to engage and interact with a deaf child rather than both children feeling awkward and helpless.

Will learning signs delay my child's speech?

Many parents fear that signing will delay or further delay speech. Our experience has been the opposite. If your goal is communication, then signing will meet that communication need much earlier than speech. "When we found out Leah was deaf, many people warned us to be careful with signing. They said, 'If she gets too comfortable signing, she will never speak.' Their intentions were good, but they were absolutely wrong. Luckily, we first gave Leah a complete language in signs, only then was she able to take time to work on the skill of labeling those signs through her speech. English is a language. American Sign Language is a language. Spanish is a language. But speech, it is a skill...and Leah is a little chatterbox!"

I don't have time to learn and teach my child sign.

Parenting can be very overwhelming because there never seems to be enough time. This is why we created Signing Time-it does the work for you!

Do I have to become fluent in ASL?

No, you don't. We are providing parenting tools for communication through the use of ASL. I think you will be surprised how useful it is to learn even a few signs. The Signing Time series teaches more than 75 signs and exposes you to over a hundred.

If fluency is your goal, ASL, like any second language, takes time and practice. (I have been signing for 8 years and I'm still learning) Surrounding yourself with others that are fluent will really boost your skills and your confidence.

If you are interested in learning more, check out your Community Education Programs and Community Center for the Deaf. Many Jr. High Schools, High Schools, Community Colleges and Universities now include ASL in their curriculum. There are sign language interpreting programs all across the country.

Why do you use ASL and not made up signs?

Since you are going to take the time to teach and reinforce signs, it makes sense to use signs that are part of a living language that have meaning to the hundreds of thousands of ASL users. Additionally, your child's caregivers (Doctors, preschools, daycare centers, and elementary schools) are far more likely to use ASL than to try and learn individual "made up" signs for each child for whom they care.

Hearing children that start out as "baby signers" can comfortably transition into communication with deaf children and adults, and take advantage of other ASL materials (videos, ASL playgroups, etc...). They have also laid a foundation for the study of ASL as a second language later in their academic careers. All of this is possible, by simply using ASL signs instead of made up signs.

And finally, many of our Deaf customers have pointed out that made up signs run the risk of actually "saying" something unintended in ASL, leading to potentially humorous if not embarrassing situations.

My child does not do the signs correctly. Is that okay?

Most children adapt signs to whatever they are physically able to do. As their fine motor skills develop further, their signs will also develop. This is very similar to the pattern in speech development; "Da-da" suddenly becomes "Daddy" or "Dad" or in Leah's case, "Aaron!" (LOL)

How soon will my child start to sign?

It really depends on when you start. If you start signing with your newborn, they may not reciprocate until 8-14 months old. If you start with your 2 year old, they may respond immediately or it may take a couple of months. If your child has physical, mental or developmental delays, take that into consideration. My daughter Lucy had no words and no signs and showed no interest in communication for two long years. Her doctors did not expect that to change. We didn't give up, we continued exposing her to sign and speech, and suddenly she had a language explosion in speech AND sign!

My child can hear. Why should they learn American Sign Language (ASL)?

Most children are not developmentally ready to speak until approximately 2 years of age. Babies are developmentally able to communicate with signs much earlier than that. Some studies indicate children as young as 5- 6 months of age can communicate with limited signs. The inability to communicate causes frustration and tantrums. Sign language is a wonderful tool that allows even very small children to express themselves. Most parents that sign with their babies talk about an unexplainable bond that is felt when their child communicates so early!

I have heard that signing helps with tantrums and "The Terrible Two's".

Many tantrums and the "Terrible Two's" are about frustration and communication. There is less frustration when your child can communicate. The typical child's motor skills develop far faster than their verbal skills.

My children are older than 5 years of age, is that too old for Signing Time?

Children of all ages love "Signing Time." Sign language is a valuable tool at any age! Your 5 year-old will quickly learn all of the signs AND they will pick up the additional signs that we show off in the songs too! Many older children love the idea of sign language as their "secret language." Not to mention it is a real language used by millions of Americans, including Leah!

What research exists about the benefits of using sign language with hearing children?

In a word, lots. Please download our summary of the latest research by clicking here.

BABY SIGNING TIME WITH SARAH


Actually, I had long wanted to teach sarah how to use sign language. As a newmom-to-be, I read in many books when I was pregnant about the benefits of teaching baby sign language to reduce their temper tantrums and frustrations. So when Sarah was born I was quite determined to teach her baby signining.

I went to many book stores to find books on signing for babies but what i saw was many books with only static drawings of the signs on the pages. There were no supporting videos or VCDs to guide the parents. It was because of this that I hesitated to buy the books and resorted to searching the internet. There were 1 or 2 sites that shared a simple video on the correct baby signs. But what I found was that Sarah didn't quite get the idea and didn't respond to it.

When Sarah was abt 13 months old, I read a blog by a Singaporean mom on multiply about how her 10mth old baby started to sign to her. I quickly sourced for it and managed to get my hands on the DVD gift set for S$99! A bit pricey but I thought heck lar, just try lor.

When I finally received it, it came with 2 DVDs and 2 accompanying CDs to play in the car. I played it for Sarah and eagerly awaited for a miracle to happen...and true enough, voila! Within 1 week of watching it, Sarah started baby signing for things : Dog, cat, eat, drink, milk etc. By now, 2 months later, she can sign majority of the things on the DVD. She loved the visuals and the music so much she watched it almost everyday till now. Truth be told, I enjoyed watching it too...very catchy tunes and graphics.

When she's fussy in the car or early in the morning, I play the Baby Signing CDs (coz I don't agree with too much tv in the day) and she's calm. haha! I wish I had found it sooner. Thanks to the mommy on multiply that inspired me! My mother -in-law is very impressed and says that sarah communicates better now (coz she always signs Shoes to Grandma to tell her to bring her out to the garden).

She still has her temper tantrums but at least now for most of the things she needs, she can sign for it.

So this is a MUST have if you want to communicate and develop a better bond with your baby.

I am a firm believer of communication with babies and Signing Times has done a great job with bridging that for me. Many of my colleagues that visit sarah at our place usually get a "free show" of the signs she can do. Her proud grandma never fails to show our visitors how Sarah can communicate with sign language.

Before this, I tried to learn on the web and teach it to her myself. Well, nothing came out of it for 13mths and I just gave up coz she started to talk pretty fast. To my surprise, it simply took the DVD 1 week to teach what I tried teaching her for 13 mths! Amazing stuff.

So don't waste time doing it the hard way...and believe me, there is a better way to communicate with your darling baby.

By the way, the lady who started it, started this project with just a simple vision in mind. Through sheer determination and hard work, this simple project became a hit in the US and has started a new language revolution! Really amazing lady..do read the story of how this lady overcame a family challenge, turned into an entrepreneur with just a simple vision and by charging USD25,000 on her credit cards became successful as a result! You Go Gal! By the way, all the songs are actually written and sung by this entrepreneurial lady!

I'm really so inspired by her! She is one of 3 mothers given the Entrepreneur Mom Award 2007 by Working Mother Magazine for moms who've turned their unique ideas into businesses that make a real difference in their communities, across the country and worldwide. The full article here:

http://vebranch.rgisolutions.com/web;jsessionid=BCCA597FF63D50CC457105E70595DA16.tomcat1?service=direct/1/ViewArticlePage/dlinkFullArticle&sp=254&sp=93

For those who want to know the story of baby signing times, here's the link http://www.signingtime.com/article_info.php?articles_id=2&osCsid=1b606c85b3ffd0e0186cdc7631546fb9

I'm organising a bulk purchase for parents keen on this. For those keen to join in for Baby Signing Malaysia/Singapore, please contact me at eileentan.rm@gmail.com

THE REWARDS FOR CONSISTENCY WITH BABY

Sarah is almost 16mths old and for the past 1mth and a half, she had a home babysitter taking care of her.

Just today, her babysitter came to tell me about how cute Sarah was the other night before she went to bed. She said that Sarah was dozing off while drinking from her milk bottle as she was too tired from the day's activities. The interesting thing was that Sarah would wake up to drink some more before dozing off again. This happened a few more times until she had finished up all her milk, passed the bottle to her babysitter then promptly rolled over to sleep!

Her babysitter says that she will always finish her milk before passing it over to her.

As I think back on how she developed this good habit, I remembered the things I did when she was a little baby.

Every time I made her milk bottle, I would tell her that she needs to finish it up and not waste it. When she stopped or refused to drink anymore and wanted to play instead, I would wait about 5 minutes for her and then offer her the milk bottle again. Most of the time she would drink it and then stop to play again. I would repeat this process until she finished her milk. Of coz there were times when I had made just too much milk for her. On such occasions I allowed her to finish what she could. Then I would be the wiser and make the right quantity for her at those times. By drumming into her the concept of finishing her milk and consistently ensuring it has resulted- in my opinion- this good habit now of finishing her milk (all 8-9 ounces of it) before moving on to anything else.

Similarly for the habit of keeping her toys before moving on to other things. Some people felt that I was too strict when I started enforcing the rule of keeping her toys before doing something else at about 10-11 months old. At that time, she had learnt the concept of "put back" and was quite good at it.

What I did was this: Once she finished playing with her toys, I would tell her," Ok now it is time to put back. Come, Mommy will help you put back. We must always put things back where they belong, ok?" I would then put the pieces into her hands and guide her hand to put it back in the box. She would put one in and I would put one in. It took a long time but I made cleaning up another activity. As she got more adept at putting things back, I let her do it herself and I would instruct her to put her toys back first before doing other things. Sometimes to reinforce the instruction, I would point to the toy in question and say "Put back" and point to the place it should go to.

There are times when playful Sarah decides to push her limits and see whether mommy really enforces it. She would scuttle off somewhere and conveniently leave her flash cards everywhere on the floor. Now most of the time, her grandma and aunt would keep for her, but when I am around, she would not be able to escape. So I would walk over to her and remind her that she has to "put back" her toys first. I would then hold her hand and bring her back to the messy place and say "mommy help you, we keep together ok?" Even if it is just 1 card she keeps, it is a positive step and I encourage her with a "great job Sarah!"

Now, when she plays, she will keep her toys herself. On playful days, I need only to remind her to put back or close the door and she will do it. On really naughty days, I will use my angry voice and put the toy in her hand and guide her firmly to keeping it. She will whine and complain but she gets the idea.

So parents, consistency is the key! Even if you are in a rush for time, having baby keep just 1 card while you keep the rest is considered a job well done.