All of my kids have loved jumping in this.

Here is a cute video of Annie when she was 15 months old.  I love sign language!

Andrea Burton Ploehn

These days children are bombarded with information, games, lessons, and more. ASL signing is a great way to help them get ahead or just keep up.  Mothers need to remember that even those sometimes when their young toddlers don’t produce signs right away, they are still using those cognitive tools to process the information and developing those skills for higher level language.  Don’t get frustrated if your baby takes a while. The most important thing is to be consisitent when you have chosen a sign for them to learn. For example when teaching them the sign for “more”, sign it with your baby manipulating hands each time he is eating, be consistent and patient.  When you are playing a simple game and your baby wants to do it over and over again, use the sign more.  Those intellectual processes will be enhanced through both the interaction and the language use.

Debbie Parrish

My son Ben is now 5 and a half months old.  He has become a lot more aware of his mommy.  When I leave the room he’ll start to whimper until I pop my head back in and then he smiles.  He reaches for me when I walk past him and he’s constantly grabbing for everything.  I can tell when my 2 year old walks in the room because Ben will let out a screech even before the toddler comes near him.  He’s already learned that Brandon usually means trouble.  It’s amazing how early they recognize cause and effect patterns.

When you start to notice your baby reaching some of these developmental stages, it’s a good time for you to engage your infant in learning new things.  They are extremely curious and their minds are like little sponges, ready to absorb the world around them.  This is an ideal time to really start using sign language consistently.  Some of you may have already been using signs here and there with your baby already.  If you haven’t started yet, don’t wait any longer.  Your baby is just itching to learn new things and he trusts you to give him the information he needs to continue to develop.

Many parents have told me that after their child reaches this stage in development they can tell that he picks up on the meaning of the signs they are using very quickly.  I personally agree, I noticed my children have become intensely aware of the signs I use right around this point.  Up until now they had been in the first stage, Entertainment. It was very clear to me that they were moving on to the second developmental stage of baby sign language, Comprehending. After the child reaches this stage you can be sure it wont be long until they progress very quickly through the remaining stages and will be signing back to you very soon.

I’ve decided to post the developmental stages for you again so that you can easily track your child’s progression.

Developmental Stages of Baby Sign Language: helpful answers to questions

I know that sometimes it can be confusing when you first start to use sign language with your baby.  It’s hard to know if you’re doing it right, or if the baby is responding how they should.  One thing that I found was helpful was to look for the different stages of signing.  We like to call it the baby sign experience.

The stages to look for are:

1.  Entertainment- at first your baby will just watch you, he thinks it’s fun to see your hands moving, and your facial expressions.

2.  Comprehending- your baby will begin to understand your signs, even though he wont be able to imitate the sign himself.

3.  Sign Success- your baby will be able to produce a sign on his own.

4.  Sign Trials- your baby will experiment with signs, using them in different contexts.

5.  Signing Feast and Fun- your baby has gotten to the point that he fully understands that using signs represents other objects, emotions, actions, etc… He will then look to you for more signs so that he can continue to more fully express himself.

These are the basic 5 stages of baby sign language.  If you want more details and specific examples of the stages you can visit the signing 4 baby home page at www.signing4baby.com

Remember to be consistent… and I promise the results will be amazing!

Andrea Ploehn, Signing 4 Baby Founder

My name is Susan and my 23 month old grandson, Tyler, has lived with me since birth.  I began using sign language with him around 8 months old.  He never seemed interested in signing the words, instead any word we would try to teach him in sign language he would just speak it.  Now at 23 months he will use the sign and the spoken word.  His vocabulary is amazing.  At 18 months he had the vocabulary of over two years.  I know at two years, he is going to top 2 1/2 to a 3 year old vocabulary.  I think this story is important because my daughter, (Tyler’s mom), lives with me and she just gave birth to identical girl triplets born on 10-11-08.  I can not wait until they are old enough to begin doing sign language.

I would love to try out your products and give you feedback.  Over the next two years it would be fun to video tape the triplets signing and watching Tyler teach the girls sign language.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Susan

Thanks Susan!

Emotions

Happy, Sad, Scared, Bored, Surprise, Tired, Mad

click here

My son has never been a good napper so he goes until he crashes.  Just before dinner he fell asleep and we couldn’t wake him up.

We still couldn’t wake him up.

I love that boy!

Here are some great basic signs to do with Annie

Please, Dad, Mom, Grandpa, Grandma, More, All Done, Again, Sorry, Help.