Strollerderby

Streetside mimes, hee hee. We were at a party with Maggie right when she started signing and none of the people at our table had kids, so they were fascinated. The guys spent much of the evening teaching her to respond to "Touchdown!!" with the "all done" sign (exactly the same thing).  

I LOVED signing, loved it, and got very interested in learning ASL (that's what we used) myself. I will say this, though, she did talk late and I wonder if signing has someting to do with it. Once she started, she caught right up, though, and I think the benefits outweighed the downside. She was much calmer and happier in early toddlerhood once we really strated ramping up the signs. I'll definetly use it with any subsequent kids.

All three of my kids are late talkers.  We used sign with the first two.  Matt was almost 7 before he would utter full sentences.  He had a few words here and there, and the boy could spell dinosaur by the time he was 4, but he was not big on full blown conversations or making his needs known, so we signed here and there.  

Nate, well, he's something else.  He would do the screaming and pointing and not being able to tell me what he wanted and needed.  We did the Baby Signs with him, and he did great.  I don't think it caused speech delays.  He was already delayed.  But after learning just a few signs, he calmed down and quit screaming.  

I just don't have the patience for the full-blown signing program, but I did teach both my kids the signs for "more," "all done," and "milk," and I think that *significantly* cut down on the whining and fussing. "More" and "all done" aren't just for mealtime either--they can be used, for example, for the baby to tell you whether s/he wants to get down from the swing. Both babies were obviously thrilled the first time they used the signs correctly and got what they wanted. As soon as they were able to say those words, they dropped the signs.

I do know people who teach their kids the whole Baby Signs book, but I'm not sure it has much effect on speech either way. It's cute that the baby knows the sign for frog, but it's not all that useful. But it sure is fun for the kid.

The sign for Father/Daddy isn't made with an L shaped hand.  It's made with an open hand, thumb touching the forehead, so this should be a very easy sign for a baby to learn.

Both of my kids did loads of signing.  At 18 months, my son knew over 130 signs. Around that time his spoken language emerged and he was an incredible talker. Today, at 4+ years, he's got an amazing vocabulary and full confidence in his ability to communicate.  I credit early signing.  And I also long for it, since it was much, much quieter than the blather of my boy who has so much to say about everything!

My 16-month old daughter just didn't seem to care.  She'll pick up a sign, use it for a while, and then drop it.  We had all-done, which was replaced by flipping her plate over.  We had more which was replaced by finger jabbing and growling.  Recently, we have acquired please, but we only get it when we ask her to say please if she wants something.  (She growls at us a lot, impatient little imp)  Forget cute animal signs, milk, sleep.  She could care less.  Of course, her first words other than mama and da were "I did it"  and "I got it" which probably explains a lot.

My son used signs for a little over 3 years. He was a late talker for sure. However, once he started talking he was using an enormous vocabulary and was able to express abstract, complicated ideas. This was tough because he does have minor speech problems. So while other kids were talking about objects, my kid was talking about ideas and there was no reference for the adults around him to guess what he was talking about, as you would with other toddlers.

He's 5 now and his speech is mostly understandable.

By the way, I don't think that signing had anything to do with the speech problems (all the boys in my family have had to overcome this). However, its quite possible that signing caused the speech delay. Honeslty, it never bothered me at all. It was actually nice because my kid was quiet and also able to communicate!

And by the way, as I am the primary care taker and thus sign teacher in my house, I might steal your wife's idea on the daddy sign. That's awesome!

You have to think of the mechanics, its easier for babies to sign their needs rather than think of the words and instruct their mouths to say them.

I used key signs with my first kid (eat, drink, play etc) like less then 10 signs.  Just so she would be able to communicate without the total melt down.

Number two is a year old (just) and is having a hard time with the signs (Ok, mom is having a hard time staying consistent with teaching the signs) and the freak outs are getting on my ever lasting nerve.

I think the whole signing issue is a balancing act, knowing when to drop the signs and force the language can be tricky.

I don't see anything wrong with kids talking late.  Especially if they can sign what they need in the meantime.  In fact, after having to listen to kids non-stop talking at school, I wish they continued the signing through high school.  I don't mind my class talking when they are supposed to be, but they think they can talk when I am teaching.  Signing at least would let the other kids concentrate on the lesson at hand.

I noticed quite a few of those who left comments talk about their kids being late talkers.  Could someone post an entry about late talking, please?

My son's almost 21 months and not talking much ex. for the odd animal name or sound.  His pediatrician's asked us to have him evaluated for hearing and speech & cognition.  (His hearing's OK and we have the speech eval. next week.)  He does rely on about 12 signs to get what he wants, and can even put 2 signs together, and has excellent receptive language.  (He'll follow our instructions.  Sometimes.)

Among my questions for you folks-of-late-talkers are: at what point did you sit back & stop worrying that it was more serious, like autism?  Did you do any aggressive therapy to get them farther along the verbalization road?  Did you let your kids watch TV or cut it out to improve their talking?

This issue has occupied most of my attention the last 3 months.   I think it's stopped me from really enjoying the days with my son.

for vickiedc:

kids who get talked to and exposed to real language (as opposed to baby talk) and are allowed to verbalize (as opposed to those who have pacifier 24/7) generally speak earlier than the guidelines say. in saying that if a child is exposed to many languages (bilingual etc) they tend to speak later because of processing multiple inputs also some may point to extended breastfeeding as a delay as well because it takes longer to get rid of the tongue thrust reflex (same can be said for extended bottlefeeding)

enjoy the days with your son, worry yes but dont let it bog you down fromenjoying the time when the youngun is young

Agnes: "The sign for Father/Daddy isn't made with an L shaped hand."

It's a joke. That particular sign is often used to mean something else...

We did exactly the same thing with my 10 year old daughter when we were discussing signs that we could use with our youngest. We did the "mommy" and "daddy" signs, and then she asked what the sign for "sister" was. My wife (who is a merciless tease sometimes) immediately told her that it was an L sign placed on the forehead. She bought it for two full seconds, until she actually made the sign herself. Then said "HEY!" and we all had a good laugh. :-)

Vickiedc-

I posted earlier about my son's speech delay and use of signs. I used to worry about his speech development, but I was never worried that it could be a sign of autism. Our ped. never raised that concern either. I think that my son was pretty obviously engaged, communicative, curious, and expressive and while I know next to nothing about autism, I'm guessing that those would be things you would want to look out for more than the ability to talk. (Note to more knowledgable peole: Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong!!)

Our ped. did have us evaluate our son's hearing around age 2 - it was normal. He told us we could try speech therapy, but our son would probably resolve things on his own...and he did. And we never used therapy, although we did have our son evaluated by a speech therapist who agreed with our doctor.

My son is 5 now and he speaks brilliantly and clearly. Language is still not something he's very interested in. However, he's pretty brilliant with math, music, and puzzles.

Oh, and we've never had a TV in the house or used educational DVD's, CD's, or electronic talking games/toys. I read a lot to my son and explained things to him while we played, hiked, cooked dinner etc. I never used baby talk with him or any other kid. My mom insists that because I did so much talking, my son never had a chance or reason to do so! That's a joke, by the way. I always asked what he thought about things - he's reply with a sign, hug, or smile usually.

I hope that you can stop worrying and be able to enjoy these precious (and quiet) months/years with your son. Looking back at how my boy developed, I see it as so indicative of his personality. He's always loved to invent his own systems for things and he's always been so interested in hands on exploration, math, and figuring out why things are the way that they are. When he finally began speaking, as I said above, it was about abstract, complicated ideas, rather than concrete things like "look at that kitten". He's a natural leader and very patient/tolerant for his age. Like I said, he enjoys making his own systems, which is what he did with babysigns (he made his own and I followed his lead) and he really doesn't seem to care if everyone else goes about things differently. He's even invented some games that his teacher has incorporated into the class.  Obviously, I am endlessly fascinated by my kid! :) Just trying to illustrate that late talking doesn't necessarily mean anything other than late talking. Or it might mean that your little guys is absorbing knowledge for later use and then KABOOM!

Also, last thing, I have a nephew who is adorable but at age 2 never shuts up! He was an early speaker and has an enormous vocab. But because people can only understand half of what he says, he is very often screaming in frustration. I love him, but he drives me nuts! BTW, he did watch quite a bit of TV and didn't use signs - maybe that has something to do with his early talking??

Anyway, good luck to you and your boy! And I hope this made sense, I find it difficult to communicate in this comment format.

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