Baby Signs

Baby Signs by Linda Acredolo was a great book for introducing the concept of signing to hearing babies. I especially liked that it had pictures of babies using their signs and a picture dictionary at the end showing the most common used baby signs.

However, I don't think we will be able to use much from it. When teaching a baby to communicate using signing you have two choices. The first is to teach them signs as a bridge to use until they find a vocal vocabulary at which time the signs are abandoned. With this intent the signs can be any physical sign that works for the baby, thus an airplane may be referred to by the child raising both arms out to his sides. The second choice is to teach signing as a second language which will be carried on even after the vocal vocabulary is present, in this instance the signs taught will need to be ASL.

Since we are all learning ASL through classes we have decided it would be simpler to just teach Sariah the ASL signs. We are eagerly awaiting for her to use her first sign which may not be for another two to three months, but we are sure having fun with her in the meantime.