Two Food Signs

I tend to get lazy with my signing.  Because Elaina already knows the very basic signs, we get by.  I forget to introduce new ones.

Elaina loves bananas.  It took me a while to figure out, but she would call them "ha".  Probably from the very end sound of banana.  Anyhow, once I realized that she had a name for them, I showed her the sign.  She picked it up immediately.
It was the same with strawberries.
Favorite foods are easy to teach. :)

I am proud of my little girl!  She has already known the signs for "eat", "more", and "drink" and uses them frequently.  But it's exciting now that we are getting into the nitty gritty of what exactly she'd like.

Repetition is Key

We have this great DVD called "Winged Migration" with incredible footage of many different birds and ducks.  While watching that today, Elaina learned a new sign - bird.

To sign 'bird', you open close your pointer and thumb finger

as if you were pinching something between your fingers, mimicking a bird's beak.

It's something I never get tired of, watching her learn new signs and seeing her proud smile when she gets the sign and I acknowledge it.  The funny thing is that she saw the birds and signed 'dog'.  She calls the neighbor cats 'dog' as well, so I'm not surprised.  I guess an animal is an animal to a 14 month old. 

But, back to the sign for 'bird'; this sign requires pretty dexterous fingers, and Elaina's sign for 'bird' looks much like her brothers did when he was that age.

When Elaina signs, her bird's beak is more round than flat, her fingers forming an "o" rather than a beak. She looks like she is trying to pick up a cheerio. :)

Actually, Elaina's first tendency is still to sign 'milk' rather than bird, so I'll be keeping my eye out for more opportunities to sign 'bird', whether it be from pictures, books, or real life. The more she sees the correct sign, the quicker she'll catch on.

When signing with babies, repetition is key!

Down and Up: Useful Signs

One of the easiest signs to learn, and one of the easiest signs to understand is 'down'.

Obviously, its opposite, 'up', is just as easy.

These two signs can be really handy to know when taking care of little ones.  

To sign 'down' simply point and move your index finger down several times.

To sign 'up' point and move your index finger up several times.

With Elaina, I started signing 'down' first, as it is a much easier sign to learn than 'sit'.  She likes to stand up in the bath and in her high chair.  Neither situation is safe.  So, I started signing 'down' while saying "sit down, Elaina".

She understands the sign very well (every time I sign it, I physically sit her down).  In fact, she understands it so well that she will stand up and sign 'down' once we look at her.

The fact that she has everybody's attention when she does this, as well as lots of laughter directed at her, is no doubt one of the reasons she puts on the signing show.  I have since gotten her a new high chair with better restraints.

The sign 'up' is pretty easy to implement into your daily life as well.

When Elaina is done eating, I will sign 'all done' and then 'up' while asking her if she is all done and would like to come out.

You can also use the 'up' sign when your little one wants to come out of her carseat 

or to be picked up into a grown-ups arms.

Try these signs!  They're universal and everybody will understand them whether they know American Sign Language or not!

Where?!

Wow, where has the time gone?!

We are still signing.  Actually, we will always sign.  It is second nature for me now.  So much so that I sometimes sign to my friend's babies without thinking!  They have no idea what I am doing, but I'd love it if they did understand me!

Okay, back to us.  Elaina has learned quite a few signs this last month.
And while I want pictures to share on here, it is really hard to photograph a moving baby who is always headed to my lap. In other words, she fills the frame of my shot with her face if I'm not quick enough.

So, I'll share what poor shots I do have, and I'll have to enlist the help of Daddy sometime soon in getting some better shots.

I think I left off when Elaina learned to sign 'dog'.  That is, by the way, her favorite sign, and she often accompanies the sign with a 'woo, woo".  It's the new cutest thing ever.

The funny thing is she'll sign 'dog', make the woof sounds, then sign 'where'  (our neighbors have a dog that we can often hear, but can't see because of the wood fence that separates our yards).

Her first 'where' was pretty classic.  She'd hold her hands palm up and shrug her shoulders.  I think everyone know what that means.  But it's not the ASL sign for 'where'.

To sign 'where', shake your index finger back and forth 

and furrow your brows as if asking a question.  

Elaina has since moved on from the palm up/shoulder shrug to a twisted closed flat hand.
These are approximations. These are her baby steps in sign.  I'll keep signing the correct form and she'll get it soon!

Learning ASL is Easy!

Teaching your baby to sign is really a very simple thing to do.  Yes, you are learning some American Sign Language, which is its own language, in the process.  No, it is not difficult.  After all, you are not becoming fluent in ASL (although kudos to you if you do), you are simply using key signs to augment your speech.

One of my class attendees recently marveled that American Sign Language signs "really make sense"! 

Most of the signs are iconic and mimic shape or movement, thereby making them easy to remember.

Let me demonstrate just how easy it is.
When I have class attendees with little exposure to ASL, we play a sign game. I hand out cards with a picture on each, telling the participants that they have to come up with a sign for each picture.  

The first one is piano.

What would your sign for piano be?

Would you move your fingers as if you were playing the piano? That is exactly correct!  That is the sign for piano.

How about car?

Are you imagining driving a car, with both hands on the steering wheel, steering?  That is exactly how you sign car.

See how easy that was?!? It is that simple to learn a handful of signs to start teaching your child!  Most of the signs are easy to learn and easy to remember, for both you and your child.

In fact, just last night, Elaina picked up on a sign without me showing it to her.
She has watched all of us wash our hands numerous times. She, of course, loves water. When I was walking by the sink, she started rubbing her hands together and reaching for the faucet. She figured that one out on her own! (Technically, the sign for 'wash hands' is made with closed fists).

Spend a few moments to learn a sign that is relevant to your child's life, implement it into your daily life, and you'll reap the benefits for months to come!

The one-day sign

Over the weekend, my baby surprised me by learning a new sign after seeing me produce it only a few times!

A friend and I drove up the mountain to check out the fall colors.  She has a cute little dog that all my children were quite enamored with (can you tell we don't have any pets?).  My three year old was letting the dog walk him while everyone else played in the woods.

My baby, Elaina, was quite taken with the four legged animal.  She watched him constantly and kept leaning towards him with her arms outstretched.  

She picked up the sign immediately; I only showed it to her twice before she was doing it herself.

To sign dog, you slap your thigh as if you're calling your dog to come 

(you can then snap your fingers, but for babies I keep it simple and leave it at a leg slap).  

Elaina (12 months) signs 'dog'

The funny thing was that Elaina would use both hands and would slap whoever's thigh was closest, and as we were sitting on the ground together, it was often my thigh she would slap!

I was amazed at how quickly she learned the sign.  After spending months signing 'milk' and 'eat' and waiting for her to produce them, it is such a pleasant surprise to see her pick up a sign in one day!

If there is one thing that really grabs the interest of your child, learn the sign, and teach them!  You'll be amazed at how quickly they 'get it'!  

What things interest your baby?

Long Term Benefits of using Baby Sign Language

In the late 90's, signing with your hearing baby was not very popular and was actually subject to some criticism.  A common belief at the time was that signing with your baby would delay his or her speech.  While I'm sure you are all aware that is a myth, and everyone realizes that signing is beneficial, let me re-iterate just how beneficial it is.

Obviously, signing will reduce frustration (for both the parent and the child), and it will increase your parent/child bond.  By teaching your baby to sign, you not only are empowering your child, you are giving him a jump start on his language development.  Yes, baby sign language actually enhances your child's language development!

Doctors Laura Acredolo and Susan Goodwyn, authors of Baby Signs (not a book I recommend using for learning baby signs as they are non-ASL - more on that later) conducted studies proving babies who signed to be more advanced than their non-signing peers, even many years later.

They found that babies who signed knew about 50 more real words at the age of two than the non-signing babies. Also, they discovered that a three year old who had signed as a baby had the vocabulary and understanding of words of what we'd expect in a four year old.  Incredible!
Here is an excerpt from their book that explains why signing accelerates a baby's language development:

"Babies come into this world with a mind-boggling 100 to 200 billion brain cells (or neurons). What they don't come into the world with are the trillions and trillions of connections between and among these neurons. These connections, as much as the neurons themselves, are what enable each of us to organize our thoughts, see relationships among things, remember past events, and master language. How do these connections come about? Both their creation and their continued existence depend a great deal on a child's experiences in the world. The more often a child encounters thought-provoking objects, events, and problems, the more connections get made and strengthened.
This general principle is clearly relevant to the relation between Baby Signs and learning to talk. Every time a baby figures out that a sign is appropriate to to meet a particular goal and successfully uses it to do so, the brain circuitry devoted to thought and language becomes a little more sophisticated."

While this research was done on babies using Baby Signs, a program that does not use American Sign Language signs, I feel like the results are still noteworthy in that the concept is the same - your baby is learning to communicate much earlier than he would if he weren't signing.

The benefits of signing with your baby continue. At 8 years old, studies found signers to have an IQ averaging 12 points higher than the non-signers.  Why? Acredolo and Goodwyn speculated that perhaps it was because children who signed were empowered and determined to be heard. These children developed a life long love of books, realizing that every thing can be labeled.

Wow! Who considered the benefits of signing beyond the infancy and toddler stage?  I certainly didn't!

It is my personal opinion that signing would also be a great bridge between two different languages, just as it is a bridge between non-verbal and verbal communication.  A sign, being kinesthetic and, in my mind, more concrete than a spoken word, would be an anchor between two different languages and a great way to show that an object has more than one name.  Also, by signing and speaking a word you are giving your child several different ways to communicate, letting him choose the method he prefers. I'd be very curious to know if multi-lingual families found signing to be beneficial for their young children.