Both my kiddos signed over 75 signs regularly. My son started at 6 mo and my daughter at 4 mo. By the time they were 16 months they were signing like crazy. So much fun!!

@Mary- no. It’s shown that signing (and using the word out loud) can actually help them speak sooner.

My daughter’s day care encourages signing, otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have attempted it. However, at 14 months, I can say that signing has helped tremendously! I can tell that she understands a lot of what I say (she’s great at following basic directions), and I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to not be able to express herself back. But knowing just a few signs can drastically cut down on the frustrating guessing game of “what do you want?”

Signing encourages communication and decreases frustration. Most children will naturally drop signing on their own as their speech development improves. They quickly learn that spoken words are much more efficient than signs (i.e.you can’t “yell” in sign language and you can’t get mom’s attention with a sign if she is not looking at you, etc.) While it’s certainly not necessary for development, baby sign language can be very beneficial. It does talk a lot of consistancy and effort on the parent’s part, but it was totally worth it in our family. It’s worth a bit of research at least. There area lot of good books and programs out there about baby signing.

My oldest didn’t start talking till he was almost 2 but at 21 months he still said only 2 or 3 words. My second was a talker as soon as she was walking at 15 months. With number three we’ve done a bunch of baby signs and he LOVES to be able to communicate. He’s just over 18 months and has 15 or so signs that he loves, especially animal signs. He’s still quite verbal because we do talk to him as much as we sign with him, but he’s so much happier than the other 2 were at his age, just because he could let us know when he wanted food or drink or milk or a nap. And now instead of trying to figure out what his baby sounds mean, we have a sign that lets us know instantly whether he wants a book or some food. It’s AWESOME and I recommend it to everyone.

Please don’t let your child make up their own signs. This leads to ” home sings” that aren’t understood in the deaf community.

Which DVD would you recommend to aid in teaching sign language to a 10 month old?

I have a son who is almost 3 and we started teaching him sign language around 8 months, after he started trying to communicate with words, like mama and dada. He picked up on it very quickly. We only did a few words, just to help him ask for things he couldn’t yet say. He continued to develop his talking skills normally, maybe even a little faster than normal, and once he was able to say the words he signed, he stopped signing them. My daughter is now almost 9 months and is babbling a little. We have started signing a few basic words with her as well, and already she has picked up on a couple of the motions. I am confident that she will not have any language developmental delays either. I think signing definitely helps our children reduce their frustration. Children’s ability to move their hands develops before their ability to form their mouth and tongue into words. This is why many babies pick on signing before talking and it really shouldn’t hinder their ability talk.

My son is 21 months old and so far, he says maybe 2 words, randomly with no signs of knowing what exactly the words are. Is there a set age to this or could we start this at any time?