Last night, while Annie was having some angry tirade after being put in bed, Greg and I found ourselves amused (and confused) by one particular part of her rant:
"Everyone calls me Annie! I HATE that! Nobody calls me Anna! I just want my name to be Anna, but everyone calls me Annie! I should be Anna!" She's never once in the past expressed any interest in being called anything other than Annie (although she knows and understands her 'full' name is Annalise), it was just one of those things she latched onto and vented about angrily to keep herself awake just a little bit longer. And, of course, Ellie piped up with the occasional "Yeah!" (Watch, tomorrow night Annie will start complaining about us calling Ellie by 'Ellie' and start insisting we call her Ella (like Annie often does) or her full name of Elliana.) Ah, the indignity of a shortened nickname! Or, I guess more accurately, of being put down at 8PM for bed.
Oh -- I have a quick side note/poll for y'all, since you've all proven yourselves very useful in the past with piping in when I ask for your very needed and respected opinions! (Which, by the way -- thanks for all the input on the whole circumcision thing -- we still haven't decided one way or another, but it meant so much to have so many people comment and email their own personal opinions and experiences. Thanks!)
So, anyway. We never used much sign language with Annie. I believe it can be a very useful tool in developing speech and communication skills, but for whatever reason, my mother's intuition with Annie blared like a siren not to use it with her (after I'd gone out and bought books and stuff!) For whatever reason, it wasn't right for Annie -- my personal opinion is she would've even been more stubborn about speaking if we'd given her another communication avenue. It was really her frustration that spurred on her speech explosion. With Ellie, I never really thought about it one way or another. Ellie's obviously created some of her own, but it was only recently that we taught her any 'actual signs'. (Duh, I'm kinda slow.) And within one day of using the sign 'more', she started saying it. Now, you have to understand -- we've been trying to get Ellie to say the word 'more' for a good 8 months now or so, to no avail. Then, within something like 18 hours of learning the sign, she was saying the word as she signed it. Dang, that's some powerful stuff! So, I've taught her a few more signs. She uses a couple, but I'm really looking to expand our repertoire. And despite my own two semesters of Sign in college, I find myself fairly useless teaching her anything beyond the alphabet. Which is obviously kinda pointless at this stage. So, to you experienced parents/caretakers/involved aunts/etc . . . what experience do you have with toddlers and signing? Have you found it useful? What did you use to teach your child/learn it yourself? Is 'Signing Time' really the best? Have you found any other series you like more/as much? (I have several 'Signing Time' videos on hold at the library, and they should be here soon.) Was there some things just worth owning, or did you check out the videos you used? Did you switch videos often, or watch the same ones over and over again? Etc, etc, etc? Y'all see what I'm getting at . . .
Thanks in advance for any input!
6 comments:
Well .. I taught my kids a little sign. I've been fortunate that my last two (the boys) have both been really early talkers. However, I regret not teaching Baylee, especially since she has continued to have speech delays and problems. The school even discouraged me from teaching it to her since it wasn't a language she could use outside of the home. Well looking back, she's never outside the home without me or another family member (other than school). So even if it saved her some frustration communicating when I or Grandma was around it would have been well worth the effort. Anyway, my favorite video was the Baby Einstein video, we purchased it and the boys still watch it to this day. It's just the basics. If you're interested in a refresher course for yourself the school district continuing/community education offers classes for like $25. I took that and learned a TON!! So there you have it, my two cents :o)
I started to teach my now 2 1/2 year old son sign when he was 9 months. He started out with the basics like more, milk, drink, hungry and grew to between 35-50 signs. I lost count after that. He was also learning his father’s native language and English from both of us. Through research I knew that he would develop speech a little later because of all the languages he was learning however, it was all very worth it. He had less frustration communicating his needs and wants which meant less tantrums. He not only got good at sign, but he made up his own and was able to use it when he started talking but couldn’t pronounce his words correctly, he could relate back to signing. I learned from a continuing education community course at the local school district and looked up new ones that would be useful to him in a common sign dictionary and also online. We watched a couple videos but not regularly. I suggest finding words you think would be helpful if they could say. Food was a big one for us. We taught him pretty much all the signs for the food he ate. We changed a few because they were to hard for him to sign so don’t be afraid to make up your own! Now he pretty much talks exclusively. He didn’t want to say ‘milk’ for a while but that was easy to solve. Just like teaching, if he used the sign ‘milk’, he gets milk. If he didn’t say the word ‘milk’, he didn’t get milk. Motivation is key. Every child is different, however, I don’t see any harm in teaching sign to non-deaf children. It’s made a world of difference to us. Now we are teaching my youngest who is now 1 year old. He is speaking a few more words than my oldest did at this age, but I still believe it reduces their frustration. With a little more time my kids can talk to each other in sign as well.
Annie cracks me up. Her late night rants are my favorite.
Good luck with the sign!
I got the the video/book set "sign with you baby" and I used it most with Savannah then Elijah. Not so much with the other two. But I am go glad I did. Elijah suffered from lots and lots of ear infections, and because of signing, he was talking, even though he couldn't hear very well. My experience with signing was, they talked more, the more signs you did with them. It is in the same part of the brain.
Hi Hilary,
I am Paula, my daughter Kimberly works with Star and my husband Scott works with Greg. I love your blog and you put a smile on my face and make me laugh when I need one.
Anyway I thought I would let you know of my friends grandson who was taught to sign. He was taught to sign when he was around 8 months old. He use to sign but now they are having a difficult time getting him to talk because he signed. He has no desire to talk. Now the last 4 months he has gotten lazy and now just grunts and points to what he wants.
He will be turning 2 in May. I am sure there is positive rewards with signing, you know what they want and they don't get frustrated trying to tell us, etc. I would just talk to a speech therapist and ask for some pointers to keep them signing and talking instead of going in the opposite direction.
My daughter Shauna took sign language in high school and had some exceptional experiences (helping at the olympic's in 2002, would go to elementary schools and teach other students). I think knowing sign language can only be a positive thing growing up. It is like knowing another language like spanish or french. It just advances them in school and gives them other opportunities that the future might hold for them.
Ok! I am a big advocate for signing. Because of Whitney's disability she doesn't speak. We hope some day she will, but we will be ok if she doesn't either. Many doctors and other people will tell you that using sign will stop your child from speaking. WRONG!!! We use sign in our home all the time! My son who is now 3 uses sign and speaks also. It never stopped him from speaking! It actually helped a lot in less tantrums. Also when we went to a conference and heard Rachel Coleman speak, who created signing time. She said that ASL is a language and Speech is a skill. Help the child to have a language, so they can communicate with others and the speech part you can always work on. Sorry long post, but so many think it's going to hinder there child, but it won't! If you need any help with signing let me know. I also have most of the signing time DVD's if you want to borrow them. Good luck with everything!
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