Quote:
Originally Posted by Fletch XXX
I am reading a baby sign language book right now, they say you can teach them sign language before they talk so they can tell you what they want before they speak. Gonna teach and learn sign language with my baby girl as she grows.
Anyway, thats what Im reading, you?
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Just a quick
, I've had a few friends teach their kids sign language and as infants to have them tell you they want milk or they pooped is awesome, most babies < 1 year old just scream and its a guessing game as to why- but the flipside of that is they learn to talk much later in life.
I think they don't learn to verbalize at the same rate because they don't have the same need or sense of urgency to learn to talk as other kids since they can already somewhat communicate.
One of my friends had her kid using sign language and potty trained as an infant. If you want to look it up check "elimination communication". It was pretty awesome and made the baby alot easier to care for- virtually eliminated diapers, etc. It was pretty great, but when she turned 2 she was the hardest 2 year old imaginable. It's sort of like the communication frustration you escape comes back around to bite you in the ass. Kids I have met who were raised w/ sign language seem almost obstinate to learning words, get extremely frustrated when trying to communicate and resort to screaming and tantrums way more than your average 2 year old.
I was totally sold on infant sign language until I had to baby sit these kids at 2 and 3 years old. My friend's daughter who was raised with both the sign language and infant potty training understood speech but didn't start trying to put words together to make semi-sentences for herself until she was 4.
I don't have any kids myself, so take that as you will, but I worked in a daycare once upon a time and my age group was 2.5-3 year olds, so I'm pretty familliar with where kids that age should be and how they act. Everyone has different opinions, but personally I love 3 year olds. They are so much fun to be around and play with, and it just isn't the same with kids who have been taught baby sign language. They are NOT fun. This is just my personal experience, and I've only known a small sample of 5 kids who have been raised with sign language, and only 2 of those kids I've known from infancy all the way to 5 years, but with those kids I saw all the same speech development and behavioral issues.
It seems like there's always a trade off, and IMO the trade off really isn't worth it.