experience of sign language with a 1 yr-old?

[theoldlady]

Has anyone used sign language with a 1 yr old and found it worked/ didnt work? People are starting to mention it to me and I am wondering whether I should consider it or not...

Have read this thread with interest and I have just ordered the sing and sign dvd for my 13 month old. Hope he's not too old but I really like the idea of communicating with him before he can talk properly. Tried to do it from a book with DD but she was so articulate froma very early age we didn't need it.

We used it and I had my first sign from Ds when he was 9mths old - fastest milk he ever got lol. Will definately be using it for no2.

We did some signs at a baby group we went to but also bought a book to use at home. We we told to always use the spoken word as well as the sign so that the connection is there and the children still learn the spoken equivilant when they can speak. I think if anything it improved DS's speech and he was certainly using sentences very quickly after learning to talk.

After having seen a friends 16mth old grunting and squealing in frustration cause he can't get what he wants across I think we were saved a lot of frustrated tamtrums using sign.

Mrs Fio, last year I got year 9 to do a project of assisted communication (tied into visual probelms, hearing issues and CP) They did loads of stuff on BSL, Makaton, Brainlle and the Moon system. One of the gild could speak using Makaton, and she translated the presentations.

I was chuffed to bits because they worked so hard on the whole thing....a very positive expeerience. I did it because oneof the class called a kid a 'spastic'. He never did it again.

We signed with DD (now 3.6) and have recently got our first signs back from DS (9mths). Its just as exciting second time round

As others have said the research shows that signing helps verbal communication. Its also great fun and gives you a wonderful insight into your baby's world and what is important to them. One of my best memories with DD is a bleary early morning feed, I was more than half asleep when she signed 'bird' to me. It took me a while to cotton on but she was listening to the dawn chorus. Still makes me

Go for it and have fun with it.

martianbishop , I think that sounds fab well done to you and your class! My friend's daughter did a dance show at the Royal Albert Hall and as the latter part of the dance they signed the rest of the lyrics, as part of the dance. Everyone thought is was wonderful and quite rightly too

Mrs Fio

You are amazed that I don;t understand that NT children need to learn to sign so that they can commnicate with SN kids?

Of course I understand that

It's my job

I just have a very hard time persuading some mothers to put as much effort into verbal language as they will put into sign language. Many of the women in my antenatal group attend baby sign. The children seem to enjoy the sessions but I don't think it's a replacement for good modelling. Most kids will make normal development with the right input.

I think it's a bit of a fad and the jury is out on signing amongst my colleagues. This isn't my isolated view!

What sort of effort would you like to see mothers put into verbal language? I think most are happy to turn off the tv, if they're told not to continually tell the baby to "say dog, say woof woof" or whatever most people will follow that advice. If they're told to follow the child's attention and comment rather than redirect they'll do that.

As you say most children make normal development with the right input (and most make it without as well). I don't think the speed a child devlops speech necessarily reflects input though, language development? perhaps more so, but speech, as you know is related to many factors, of which input is one small part. Yes you can give the right input and ensure your child will talk as early as is possible for them but whilst speech may be possible for one child at 12 months, it may not be possible for another until 2.

Of course NT children don't need to learn sign in order to speak, but it's hard to pick out who is going to be an early/late talker at 9 months, and for those who don't talk until after 2 it is handy for them to have an AAC system in place (and for the parents tantrum wise). I did read a for and against set of articles published in a SALT journal, but thought the against missed the point a bit- can't remember why- but am tidying up if I come across it will remind myself. I think programmes like something special are very useful for NT children to realise that there are children out there who do use sign. Awareness is always good if it helps them to just accept a child with SN- makes everyone's life easier when out and about.

We taught our (now 3.5 year old) ds sign language from about 8 months and he responded before he was 1 yr. I don't know if it helped his speech or language development - but he is a great communicator now with a wide vocabulary. The point is tho' that the sign language helped him to get his own feelings/wants over to us before he could really talk and that has to be a of benefit to him. It also showed him that we were responsive to his wishes and that I think encouraged him to try hard to communicate with us, beit by sign or when he could, verbally. Aside from which it was great fun (we were of the DIY school of signing, picking signs up where we could and making them up as well)! I intend to recruit my DS into the teaching of signs to my next Dc (due in Feb)!