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Five Steps for Successful Signing with a Baby
by Ken Frawley
Sign to Speak – Babies Can Talk offers parents, teachers and caregivers with a clear and easy to follow program on how to sign successfully with their baby. Included in their program are the most popular and effective signs to use with babies for enhancing early communication of wants and needs. Here are five simple steps to follow to successfully incorporate signing into the life of your baby.
Step #1. Begin simply. You do not need to know many signs to begin signing with a baby. Babies Can Talk features a Jump Start chapter with three very important signs, eat, more and all done. Though you can sign as many signs as you wish with your baby, most parents choose to keep it simple at this age and focus on 10 to 20 signs that can easily be incorporated into everyday conversation and activity.
Step #2. Have your baby's attention. When you are signing with a baby, be sure you have their attention. Try to keep them focused on your words and signs. Keep in mind that their attention span can be very short, never force or coerce their involvement.
Step #3. Be Consistent, clear and connective. Use your American Sign Language, ASL, signs every time you say the word while engaging your baby. Also, clearly sign and say the words you are teaching to your baby at the same time. Finally, always try to connect the sign and spoken word to the activity or object. The sign for eat at should be connected to the activity of eating, just like the sign for cat should be connected to a picture of or to the actual animal.
Step #4. Create signing times. It is usually suggested to use signs with babies at special interactive signing times. Meal time, bath time, and changing time are great for signs connected to these activities like wash and all done. Establishing various play times where you incorporate signs during the day can also be helpful. Learn a few signs for objects in books you are reading or toys you are playing with so that you can connect the spoken word, sign and image all together while playing.
Step #5. Be patient. It does not matter at what stage you begin to sign with your baby. Whether segin at 3 months, 6 months, or 14 months, if you use the information we provide in Babies Can Talk or the steps listed previously, your baby will begin to sign back to you. Once you begin to sign, keep it up and be patient and you will see the results. Babies generally will begin to sign sometime between 10 and 14 months. Then once they begin, they rapidly begin to add additional signs.
Signing with babies is a wonderful to begin your involvement in their everyday life. It is also a powerful language skill that they can learn to use. With signed words, babies can express their wants, needs and even thoughts, long before they can vocalize words. Sign to Speak – Babies Can Talk takes was written specifically for parents to use sign with their babies. We Sign's DVD Babies and Toddlers 2 provides parents video demonstrations, information and a video dictionary of over 200 signs, including many of the signs in Babies Can Talk. Baby Songs DVD offers parents sing and sign along songs specifically to use with a baby (included in Babies and Toddlers 2). All these products will ensure that you and your family will benefit from incorporating American Sign Language into your home.