STORY FROM KENDRA BRADFORD:
Signing with our son has been wonderful At 13 months we were worried that we started too late. Luckily we had not. He quickly learned how to tell us when he was hungry, thirsty, wanted more, was done and wanted up. You could see his joy in communicating and clearly he wanted more words. Over the next few months his vocabulary increased not only in size (over 40 signs) but also in subtleties such as wanting help, telling us when and where he hurt, and things that he did and did not like.
I believe that this early communication prevented much frustration. The same time that he started talking he was signing words in combination. Not just “mom” “up” but creatively putting words together like signing “noisy” “food” when he wanted a smoothie. By signing and speaking together we could understand his spoken words way before we would have otherwise. This has made those first spoken words fun instead of frustrating for all of us. Now that he is speaking two words together he is signing three words together.
An unexpected benefit to signing is that we can communicate over large distances or when it is noisy without yelling or running after him, keeping our communication much more pleasant. We will continue signing with our son because it increases our ability to communicate and, most importantly, he obviously enjoys it. We are looking forward to signing with our second child from the very beginning.