Learning to Sign

I have often heard of mothers teaching their infants sign language so that the baby has more power to communicate before he/she is able to speak. I always thought it was a great idea and wanted to try it out with my own children. Of course when I had my baby real life got in the way and since it was a necessity I didn’t try it out. Then my sister had a deaf baby. He was born a couple weeks after my baby but we didn’t find out he was deaf for a couple months. Now that she knows he is deaf and can only hear 80% with hearing aids she is teaching him sign language so I have finally started to teach my daughter a few things. First of all, since I don’t know sign language I have had to learn a little in order to pass it on to my daughter. The greatest website  for this is the ASL (American Sign Language) website because you pick the word you want to learn and it shows you a mini movie of how to make the sign. I have also learned some signs from my sister. I have used some of these signs for many months with my daughter but it has just recently been that she has started signing them back to me. She is very good at signing the word more, coincidentally because she always wants more food. She also will sign the word milk. We are currently working on Please and Thank You and names of various foods we eat. She picked up milk really fast so I think she will catch on to these other signs fairly quickly. I just have to get in the habit of using the signs when we are saying those words. It has been really fun and it has made meal times a lot less stressful since she has been able to tell us when she wants more of something. I would recommend mom’s to try this out with their children that are not yet able to speak. It is a wonderful way to communicate with your child!

Random Posts