Hi Moms,
This question is for those of you who have taught your baby to sign. I started my son with 'milk' and 'more'. He picked up the 'more' at about 8 months and then didn't learn anything else up until about 2 weeks ago (he is 15 months old now). All the sudden, he is trying to sign back to me like crazy and our only problem is his fine motor skills are making some of the signs difficult. Over the last two weeks, he has mastered 'milk', 'all done', 'eat', and 'help'. I have shown him the signs for 'dog', 'cat', 'banana', 'apple', 'potty', and 'diaper'. He tries to sign back some of the more complicated signs, but he can't get his hand to cooperate.
My question is, what signs did you use with your children that you found to be the most useful and the easiest for them to mimic?
Thanks so much!
We used basic ASL with our daughter. She often couldn't make the sign exactly the way it was supposed to but I learned to recognize "her" signs for things. She is now 2 and talking quite a bit but often uses signs when I don't understand what she wants. She is getting better at making many signs correctly as her motor skills develop. There is also a group called Babysigns that has adapted signs to be more user friendly for babies.
We only did the signs that would help him communicate when our son wants/needs something. We did "milk", "juice", "eat", "all done", "more", "please", "thank you". It works great for us and helps our kiddo to not get frustrated. Best of luck.
Our son learned his signs in the same time frame too. By the time he was 18 months, he knew about 50 ASL signs. Children this age often don't have the fine motor skills to do the signs "just right" so they create their "own" sign that is close to the correct one. Don't worry about that....you'll know what he means. little toddlers have trouble manipulating all the fingers, so, for example, instead of using three fingers for the water sign, our son used his whole hand. He did the opposite for ball and used two fingers pointing together. it doesn't matter, they know and you will know what he is talking about.
The most useful signs I taught were several of the ones you've already taught like: eat, more milk, help-Very useful, all done, where, bath, water, cold, hot, change, night night. All of the other signs I taught really just helped our conversations! it's was amazing to be able to fully communicate with a child who couldn't yet speak! Some of the other signs we used often were: rain, flag, ball, play, airplane, car, giraffe, elephant, lion, bear,light etc... Just teach your child the signs of things he's most interested in and he'll talk up a storm!!! Have fun and enjoy.
And, as someone else posted, it is very helpful when they do begin to talk to help you understand what they mean until their words become clearer.
That is great that you are teaching sign to him. Is there a reason? Is he deaf? At 15 months, I beleive it is more important to start teaching him to TALK. If he is NOT deaf, speaking will be his main form of communication.
My son is special needs and I DO use some sign with him to get him to "listen" better. I ALWAYS speak the words at the same time. It helps, but I have a child with autism and it is something that works for us. I do encourage him to use his WORDS more often than not.
Blessings,
P. <><
This was the best thing I ever did w/my boys!! They learned more, hungry, thirsty, tired/sleepy, play, etc. I can't remember all of them, but those were the most helpful. Hungry/thirsty were super easy and helped me out a lot! Good luck...it's so hilarious to see them do it. My almost 5 year old still remembers some of them and likes to sort of show off what he knows. I kind of wish I'd kept up w/it...don't know why...just funny to watch.
My sis majored in deaf ed and keeps my son and her daughter. I loved More, Milk (we used CUP), hurt, please, thank you, no, eat, where, mommy, daddy. As far as him being able to mimick, my son had his own version of all of them. you just have to learn what his signs mean, just like you learned what his cries mean. They do not have to be accurate necessarliy, not like he is going in to the deaf community and needs to communicate. You can use them properly and he may keep trying to perfect it. I know that my son's sign for please evlolved as he got older.
