Talk to me about baby signing

[mammatulip]

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Whatever system you choose doesn't really matter. What is important is that you're consistent and always say the word at the same time as signing.

You're not teaching sign language as such, you're giving baby extra gestures to use. So all babies wave and point - you're just adding to that.

I went to Sing and Sign classes with ds when he was 7 months. He was using about 6 or so signs by 10 months. It's based on Makaton amongst other things.

A sign language for hearing impaired people will be different and harder to master with ickle baby hands, something Makaton based is simple and only needs one word per sentence.

So you would say "Would you like something to eat" but only sign "eat", not would you like.

Sing and Sign have a website and a couple of DVDs.

Makaton signs can be found on the Cbeebies website as part of the Something SPecial mini-site. www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies

Other methods/classes I've heard good things about are Tinytalk and Signaling (I think)

I would start having a look at the signs yourself over the next few months. Choose a few basics and introduce them at about 7/8 months. If babies are going to get along well with signing (and not all do) then it's usually between 10-14 months that they'll start signing back. They'll drop the signs as they learn to speak.

That's Signalong

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Can't do links but try www.forestbooks.com it's a site that deals with deaf issues but they stock all the baby signing stuff, books and dvd's.

I'm a speech nad lang. therapist and also have a baby signing busines.Bobsmum gives good advice.I rate Sing & Sign very highly.

[[http://www.singandsign.com/ Sing & Sign}}

And again

We didn't go to Sing and Sign, there wasn't a class in our area at the time, we used this instead. I found it useful because it the video explains the principles behind teaching babies to sign. It mainly uses American Sign Language which may or may not be a problem depending on your pov, although the edition we had included a BSL supplement.

We're now signing with dd2, she's been signing since about 8mo and now at 12 mo she's picking up new signs almost daily and even making up her own. It's very sweet, I'd highly recommend it.

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It covered everything we needed, it had an instructional video plus a book of signs, a chart of the most popular signs and a BSL supplement. There were a few occasions when we couldn't find words we were looking for but we (or dd) just made something up. I liked it because we paid a one off up front cost and we've now used it for 2 dds so it's been really good value for money.

I made an effort to use BSL just because we're in the uk and I felt morally obliged to! tbh a lot of the time i didn't know if we were using ASL or BSL, we just used whatever seemed simpler or could be done one handed (2 handed signs are a bit of a pita when you're holding a baby!)

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Ds likes to sign, but I confess that this is entirely due to watching Something Special which is a BBC show which has lots of Makaton signing. You can buy the DVDs from the Makaton charity, and it is really good (Mr Tumble is god !).

Makaton is dead easy and very clear, so that when they use the signs with other people, they can often understand the signs.

Hi, we did sing and sign classes- but how good it really is depends on the organisation of your teacher- ours was pants. We kept going coz DD loved it, but didn't get any hand outs until the end of the course (despite me pestering!), so quite hard for DH to be involved (I have no memory!). the DVD was a firm favorite for months too (well, at that age the only telly she had opertunity to watch) and so glad to find out we CAN buy Mr Tumble on DVD- didn't find mention of that on the BBC website when I looked ( also a god in our house, thanks cmot!). Anyway, Something Special and Sing and sign went fine together, just a few differences that didn't bring us any problems.
Our favorite signing book, that was lovely for DD to look at also, 'My First Signs' which is BSL. Got it off amazon, ISBN- 1-904550-04-5.