Too Late to Start Teaching Sign Language

[Danellie]

I taught my son sign language when he was 25 months old. Now it has been 4 months and he still can't
forget the signs that I taught him. It is really fun! And since English is our second language, so knowing ASL makes his English vocabulary richer. Actually, ASL is considered his 3rd language 
Imagine, he will not just sign it, he will also say it.
I'm very happy to know that sign language can also be taught to children even if they can hear.
It has so many benefits.  
 

[Vinod]

We see our new born child (just 17 days) making signs, which we never taught her. Curving her lips in a round shape giving indication that she is going to wet. Similarly we saw for our elder daughter who is now 3 1/2 years old, making various signs when she was less than 1 year, to show that she is hungry, wants to go out, covered her face to show that she was angry.... We hadnt read any books that time, but made our own signs which she followed, and many times learnt from her friends, which we learnt.

Now we are learning a lot more here, which we would follow for our new born.

I think its never late to teach and learn, at any age.

[wenjonggal]

My son started with Baby Signing Time at 22 mos when he came home (adopted) from China. He just loves them, and now Signing Time. He picked up signs right away and it totally helped me differentiate between all his various maaa, mehh, muh, nuh, neh utterances. I could tell if he was trying to say Milk or Marc, No or Bus, and then I could say the right word correctly. So it was more me teaching him correct enunciation when I understood his signs, instead of a horrid frustrating guessing game of what the heck he might be trying to say.

Now he can speak pretty well, but he can use ASL to speak with deaf people, and also I use it as a transitional tool when teaching him French (we live in Quebec). I'll speak in French, (or Chinese which we are trying to keep up with him) and sign words he doesn't know at the same time I say them, so he understands the word I am saying means milk or shoe (without having to translate into English). And signing is GREAT for communicating with your child when they are a little ways away, without shouting, or during an adult conversation, music concert, theater piece, super noisy place etc.

Anyways, now he knows most or all of the signs from the dvds, but asks to watch them regularly cuz he loves them for entertainment, with all the Signingtime Songs... and requests that I sing the songs while walking with the stroller or in the car. So you can't really go wrong!

[kayley]

It's never too late.I started signing and showing my girl sign languages VCD at 16 mths and she picked up right away.within 2 weeks she has master everthing on it.And at every moment that she can seize, she will find the VCD and push to me.(asking me to play the VCD).THe most rewarding thing was,she is saying the words as she sign.It's better late than never.

[Nikita]

I started signing early on, just the basic few.. eat, milk, drink, bottle, all finished... but seriously it took months to catch on.  She probably was understanding what I was saying, but refusing to sign just like she refuses to talk much but understands what I want her to do. It's only in the last couple of months has she started to sign, and in the last week or less has she really taken an interest in it. So if I started teaching sign only recently, she wouldnt be far behind what she is now.  With my oldest kids (now 13 and 12) baby sign was a rarely heard of novelty I chanced upon in a magazine, and I taught them the signs for bee, ant and a few others the article mentioned (but not regularly, just on a few occasions to see if they did take to it. We didnt know then how important it was).  They were a few years old, but they learned them.  At school years later they were taught Sign language as a foreign language, and when taught those words they remembered that I had taught them those words years earlier. Had I persisted in reinforcing their learning they would never have forgotten in the first place.

[sparkletot]

where can we get free resources on baby sign language?

[nhockaday]

http://www.lifeprint.com/

http://www.aslpro.com/cgi-bin/aslpro/aslpro.cgi

http://www.signingtime.com/resources/activities/coloring-pages/

Here are a few free resources.

[staceycanada]

I started early with my daughter but it wasn't until around 10 months that we really took off. Now at 17 months she is signing tons of words and always wants more. Oh and it didn't delay her speach in any way she just says the word at the same time as she is signing just like I do when teaching her.

[Quiet Cricket]

I would say it is never too late.  I was totally inconsistent with doing signs with my son, but tried to do them at least during mealtime starting when he was about 6 months old.  He signed "more" at about 10 months and around 12 months very consistently would sign "banana" or "apple" as well as a few other signs that I was actually fairly consistent with.  It definitely helped me understand what he was trying to say.  He is pretty verbal so I have to admit I got lazy with the signs around his first birthday because he was saying what he wanted.  I've been thinking I want to start using more signs around him now (he just turned 2) to resurrect what I had started.

[Krista G]

When I was teaching my youngest sign language my other 5 kids joined right in.  We love to sign and I couldn't believe how much my older children enjoyed learning to sign.  The oldest was around 11 at the time.  They also love to teach other people how to sign as well.  It is never too late. 

View my blog at www.teachingbabytoread.com

[Indidee]

I have a question.  My daughter is a little over 1 1/2 and has been talking for a while but doesnt really talk talk. She actually says rhymes much better than she tries to talk.  Can sign language be of any use to her? and should I use it anyways - just to encourage a sort of secret connection between us for later. Fact is, she already knows her alphabet (can read and recognise) and also her numbers.  What happens in this case?
Any suggestions / advice?

[wenjonggal]

Reasons to teach sign other than first language acquisition:

- it is another language of its own with its own vocab, culture, syntax

- very helpful as a transition between two spoken languages: if a child knows sign for "shoe" it is easy to sign "shoe" silently while saying "xiezi" in chinese... the child will know immediately what you mean, without having to mix English in with the Chinese. Also practical for translating when someone else is talking ie in Chinese, as it is silent.

-excellent for communicating with child wherever raising the voice would be intrusive or impossible: noisy surroundings, during adult conversation, across a crowded room, from distance, while someone is sleeping: you can ask if they are hungry, tired, thirsty, understand what they want, all silently and don’t need to be able to hear, just see.

- -child can communicate with hard of hearing and disabled children and adults, including friends, families and people they meet in public.

-learning gestures to go with language can help a child learn to communicate with people who don’t share his spoken language: we all know “byebye” by waving hands, but just thinking to gesticulate and make gestures opens up the mind to different communication methods. So many people go “he speaks Italian, I don’t... I guess I’ll just not try to talk to him”. Whereas gestures can open up dialogue even between people who can’t “talk”.

I wanted to teach my child sign when I saw an ASL translator speak in sign to her hearing children in a large group meeting. She communicated with them silently, and also across the room, and they could speak with deaf adults and kids as well.

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