I started showing my almost 1 year old baby “Baby Signing Time†when she was 10 month old about 2-3 times a week. Although her first word besides “mom†is “eye†(I think she learned it from a book about eyes that I read to her), her other spoken words are those that she already knows how to sign, i.e. “dogâ€, “ball†and “shoesâ€. That got me thinking … did she learn the spoken words because of signing? She also knows how to sign “more†and “milk†but she does not know how to say them.
Are your babies’ first spoken words mostly those that they know how to sign or “non-signing†words?
It makes sense that the first spoken words would be words a baby could sign. You would think that most words they could sign would be immediate needs or things in their environment (milk, cereal, mommy) and not so much penguin or monster. Spoken words would be those same things.
I think early spoken words are words that the baby understands early on and can also denote needs or objects of interest. My baby has never learnt to sign and yet a few of her early words were similar to your baby’s - “dog”, “ball”, “Mum” Today for the first time she said “come” as clear as could be and it was definitely because she wanted us to follow her.
I think that signing will definitely help your childs spoken language as does reading - many children say the words they have learnt to read early too. I think it creates multiple neural pathways that help with the desire to say a certain word.
The other thing with speech is that certain sounds are harder to form and make and this may be why certain words are harder to say for babies.
We signed with my 5 yo dd. She has always had an incredible vocabulary for her age. The words she first said were often ones she had signed but it was quite common for her to come up with other words too.
Kmum, May I know when your dd started to speak? The reason I ask is I received a negative comment recently that my baby is slow in her speech (but I think my baby is doing just fine for her age) and that I will slow her speech development if I teach my baby to sign.
I would love to hear from other parents who teach their babies signing on when they start to speak. Thanks in advance.
Hi,
As you mentioned I also started showing my baby signing DVD around 10months and few signs she picked up in couple of weeks. She started speaking few words since 13months. Now she;s 15months and I have realised that the words that she knows the signs for like milk, more, elephant, giraffe, monkey etc…she doesn;t speak those words no matter how many times we use it in a day. While some other words that she doesn’t know the sign for like bib, kick, throw etc…she speaks them and also tries to repeat other new words.
I feel signing has helped her to communicate earlier on but now since i noticed it…i’ve stopped showing her the signing DVD. She learned quite a lot from it and loved the animals shown.
I think it depends on child to child, it can be helpful for kids who start speaking late. I feel the best thing (heard from other friends and our parents) is speaking to child ourselves more and more, so as to help build the vocab. and encourage them to speak. That;s why its generally seen that the second child speaks earlier than the 1st one.
I think babies sometimes learn to say the words that they sign because we say them so often to them. I know in our case we repeat the word probably more then needed to reinforce the sign that goes with it.
I don’t know about first words, as I adopted my son at 22 mos from China, but I do know that most of his first English words were ones that were on Signing Time and Baby Signing Time… it makes sense since they say the words over and over so clearly, either while signing them or while showing actual objects and actions.
He definitely learned to say his colors from Signing Time, as hadn’t started to teach him colors yet (and he wasn’t in daycare or with someone else than me) but has a dvd of Signingtime with colors… and suddenly started going up to complete strangers and pointing to the colors of their clothes and saying them. I was quite surprised!
As for signing and slowing down speech… he babbled all the time but I couldn’t understand him. He would say mah, meh, maa, nah, neh for about twenty things, and the signing really helped me understand him so I could prompt him to better pronounce. Now he speaks pretty well (3.5 yrs old), he almost never signs though he watches Signing Time for entertainment. The speech therapist said signing was an excellent transitional language and was helping his language centers develop, rather than slowing down his speech.
I should start signing to my baby soon, definitely, because we are having more and more tantrums/meltdowns and if he could just ask for water, to nurse, or to get down it would save a lot of this throwing around his body/head that he does lately.
Kappasweet… you are entirely right! My son had almost no tantrums (ok, one when the new playground was a construction site blocked off and he couldn’t understand why he could see it but not go play!) once I could understand him! We had conversations instead! He’d sign “kitty” and I’d know why he was insistently pointing outside! And not have to play a guessing game at the fridge: milk? water? juice? orange juice? apple juice? Cuz he could TELL Me! it is GREAT! and silent if you need to use it across a room instead of shouting!
Funny, my experience with my son was a bit opposite. He first started saying words other than those he was signing. There are still a couple words that he signs and doesn’t say - specifically Thank you is the one I’m thinking of now. He can say it, but tends to just do the sign instead.
I LOVED Signing! I always spoke the word while signing and was excited to see my son responding to them so well and picking it up at light speed. He started his language explosion at 14 months and we stopped counting the words he knew at 15 months. He’s 20 months now and I suspect that his vocabulary is well over 300 words. Every day, I’m planning new words to teach him because he seems to know most of the ones that are in our normal daily environment.
I didn’t care that he waited to speak those words he signed. He vocabulary exploded so quickly and I think it because I talk to him all the time - telling him what’s going on, naming things around him, asking him questions and that he learned the benefits of communication early through sign language.