We bought it all for Ianto, taught ourselves some signs, then never got around to using it with Amelia. She does make a few hand signs for different things, but no actual sign language. I'm actually starting to teach myself some more basic signs, and will do an Auslan course when Amelia's starting school/homeschool, so bubs #3/4/5/... will most likely have some signing going on
I can lend you my Baby Sign book if you like, I got it from an expo
My parents are Deaf so they use AUSLAN for the boys. My oldest knows a few but we've slacked off lately. He picked up "toilet" first when I was pregnant and going to the toilet all the time. I was doing the sign for toilet without realising.
One of my favourite moments with DS1 was when he was about one. We were on holidays and all the Deaf people sit in a circle down by the river and talk all day. He was standing in the middle copying their signing by touching his hands together.
We've got a great iPhone / iPad app which escapes me. It's an Auslan one, as opposed to baby sign, but it's designed for babies and children. You'll be able to find it in the app store if you are interested.
i actually have the baby sign kit from the learning ladder, i've never really gotten around to using it, i've tried, but i think i unknowingly seemed to be trying the more difficult signs. lol. i might just get the kit out again and have another look-see.
I've used baby signing with DS1 and DS2 is just starting to pick up on the sign for eat. I just googled what sign I wanted to use and did it from free stuff on the net. It is great! We only taught a limited number of signs: eat, drink, finished, thankyou, book and sorry. DS1 will still sign most of these words (which is great because his speech is really hard to understand!).
We did with DD and are signing at 8 month old DS - who is watching and appears to recognize, but not imitating yet. We loved it with DD. Saved heaps of frustration when DD could get her simple requests across and I credit it with her early speech development. We didn't get any specific books or vids, but I knew a fair bit as I have a close friend who is deaf who has taught me auslan. If we didn't know a sign for something, or it didn't exist (eg. For a specific toy), we'd just make up a sign that made sense to us and DD could manage with her level of motor skills. After all (unless of course your child does have contact with deaf people), it doesn't matter if it's the 'right' sign, as long as you and your child understand each other.
Yep! I got a kit from an expo (talking hands? or tiny talk? something like that). TBH I didn't use the kit much. We ended up just using the basic signs.. milk, eat, drink, book, ball, dog, cat, light, hot, please, thank you etc. You can probably just google them and go from there for nothing.
Signing can actually speed up the talking process, so once they started using words, the signing dropped off. The kit had loads of words, but we didn't need it to that extent at all.
It's been great for communication up to probably 2yo. After that they were talking a lot more. I remember the older two had a vocab explosion around 19 months.
Alyssa as you know is signing milk, and has been doing so for a while now. She does the same sign for 'more' atm as well as 'bird' lol. But it's common for them to use a known sign for everything for a while.. it's a sign they know to communicate with their hands. Once it twigs, they can start learning quite quickly.
Enjoy it. You'll find you naturally use signs or gestures anyway that they will pick up on. This is just more deliberate
We do. My DD1 is 3 and has a speech delay (verbal dyspraxia) so I'm so glad we have this way of suplementing our communication while her oral ability catches up. I use the signs with DD2 now also. Even though she is low risk for following the same path as her sister, a child can usually sign long before they can talk so it can be super helpful!!
It isn't baby sign language because she needs more formal and universal signs as she might need them for kindy/school and such. We learnt it through early intervention and her speech therapist.
I think baby sign language or even just using your own signs is a great idea and like somebody said, if only you (and other primary carers or whatever) need to know it then it can be anything.
We do! My dd1 is disabled and uses makaton to communicate, dd2 just picked up on it, we weren't actually teaching it to her but obviously observing dd1 use it taught her. My dd1 is severely disabled and can only use a few signs (more,food,drink,sing,finished), and dd2 picked up on all of these, plus a couple of others we use that dd1 hasn't got the hang of (where, hot). It just amazes me how clever our bubbas are! I think it definitely helps with frustration where the understanding is there, but verbal skills aren't
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