Here is little Ben (really should be Big Ben as he is really packing it on) at 7 weeks. Although he isn’t quite ready to begin signing, he is developing well and is giving some of the key indicators that will let me know he is ready: he is starting to make and hold eye contact and he is starting to smile voluntarily.

As a family we like to play games. We were playing hide and seek one night and Brandon started signing “where, I don’t know”. He kept looking for Annie but he just couldn’t figure it out. He did this when he was about 13 months old. Not many children can say full sentences like, “Where is Annie, I don’t know where she’s hiding”. With sign language though, he was able to communicate this exact thought.

When we can give our hearing babies the advantage of both ASL and English the benefits are fantastic. In her book Dancing with Words, Marylin Daniels explains that “Sign language has the unique capacity to tap into the natural exchange between hand and brain, optimizing the emergence of language in the child because of the physiological advantage of American Sign Language (ASL) over English.”

Games are a great time to reinforce signing. Your child is already doing something that they enjoy and when you add a sign to that environment then they automatically associate enjoyment with the signs.