Signing Time

Alex's first pediatrician was against signing. He felt that the frustration would lead Alex to talk sooner. I haven't been successful in getting Alex to learn other signs since he made a break through on talking (ton of words at a time), but before he did, he learned signs very quickly.

I SO don't agree with the idea that learning signs will slow down speech in a hearing child. It's not exactly the same thing as being bi-lingual in spoken language, because the child can tell the difference between a sign and a word, but I do consider ASL just another language in which he learned some communication. I have noticed that Alex once said the words for the signs he knows, but he abandoned them in favor of signing. But it's not like I'm not worried that he's going to be 15 years old and not able to say the words 'milk', 'eat' or 'more', though. I mean, c'mon.

I'm all in favor of signing. Like other posters here, I saw Alex just light up like a Christmas tree when he realized that he'd just communicated with us when he first signed 'milk'. It seemed to me, it encouaged his speech, not delayed it.

August 20, 2008