For the last month or so, Chris and I have been teaching Nate sign language as a way to help him communicate before he can really talk. We used the book Baby Signs: How to Talk with Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk, which I checked out of our local library to get started.
The sign language has been helping quite a bit, since his only consistent vocal word at this point is vacuum (yes, really, he says vacuum). He’s got a sign vocabulary of about 25 words at this point, and I think it would be higher if his dexterity was a little better.
Nate is very eager to try and learn the signs, and is always looking at my hands to see what I’m doing with them. He even surprised me one day; when he saw a picture of a baby, he started making the sign for baby, which completely confused me because that isn’t a sign I taught him. That sign he only sees on his sign language video.
As of yesterday though, a problem has developed. We figured it was going to happen sooner or later, but I was hoping it was going to be much, much later. Nate has started making up his own signs. I have no idea what they mean. I’ve been trying to figure out the context for the sign (where we are, what we’re doing), but I have yet to notice any patterns.
For the record, here is a list of the signs Nate knows at this point:
more, all done, eat/drink, mom/dad, cat, dog, fish, frog, book, light, hi/bye, baby, ball, swing, hot, cold, milk, nurse, bath, spider, rain, butterfly, hat, help, please, thank-you, and sleep.
August 1st, 2008 at 6:06 pm
VERY cool! Those are frustrating times…when they’re old enough to get that language exists and that there really *should* be a way to get Mommy and Daddy to do everything you want, but you just haven’t quite gotten the hang of making it happen.
August 2nd, 2008 at 10:06 am
Figured out one of Nate’s mystery signs this morning. It was “help”. He made it when I asked him if he wanted to help me do the laundry, then repeated it when I asked if he was saying “help”.