A friend of mine is in town visiting, and was telling me today about a study he read that says that infants can learn AND USE sign language before they can verbalize their thoughts! I am totally intrigued by this idea. After I leave the village I'll surf around and see what I can find online about it. I was just wondering if anyone else had heard of this or had any experience with it?

Yes. We used sign language for Zachary a bit and I plan on using it for Alexandra too. I started with the book Baby Signs and then bought an ASL dictionary.

I hadn't heard of tiny babies doing it and it IS very interesting!

It doesn't surprise me however.

After my DD had her strokes she went to a special school for disabled children of all kinds of disabilities from the ages of 2-16.

I noticed after she had been there a while sometimes when she was talking to me and she couldn't think of the 'word' (she does this alot) then she would start to sign without even realising it.

Alot of the time she knows what she wants to say but the word doesn't come and she gets very frustrated but if she knows the sign then she can always pull that out of her mind without a problem.

Also being rational babies know EXACTLY what they want - they just don't 'speak' our language YET so signing would seem sensible.

My youngest son Jeffrey has asperger's syndrom, he has perfect hearing and could speak but when he was 1 1/2 or 2 we taught him some signs and he made his own signs and prefered to sign over speaking...... it was very strange !!!!!!!!!! He still signs....

I have heard of this. I haven't done it with either one of my dkids. My dd, however, made up her own sign for swim and uses the sign for a character in one of her favorite videos every time she sees the video or a picture of the character. (Tickety-tock from blues clues)

A woman at church taught her son to sign when he was a baby. We spent a full week of VBS one time trying to figure out what Joey was signing, lol. It was neat to see him doing it at such a young age, but frustrating because he didn't talk until really late.

Yes, babies can learn to talk sign language at a very young age and before they begin talking. However, IMO, is something that has to be closely monitored, because there are some kids that refuse then to talk (that can talk) until a later age. It can be very frustrating then if they end up in school with only sign language. I know of twins whose parents did exactly that.

Having said that, sign language is a wonderful tool, especially for special needs kids. It seems that when they learn sign language, they forget how frustrating it is to speak and they begin to use speech. Our ds#1 was that way. He lost all verbal language at 18 months and then had private speech language for a number of years. He now talks perfectly, but it wasn't until his 6th birthday that we heard words.

I think that if a child has no disabilities, that teaching them sign language should also be taught at the same time with verbal speech, that the two should go hand in hand. Just my thoughts though as I know there are many different opinions on it.

Great topic!!

my cousin's little girl learned it at her daycare. It was nice for them because she could tell her when she wanted something to eat, drink or what ever else she had learned. It think it is a neat way for them to communicate to the adults what they want before they can talk.

Our neighbor taught her daughter to sign before she could talk. They always signed and said the word at the same time. Her daughter now signs very well and also speaks the words.

One of DH's bosses did this. I'm not sure how old his baby was when he started- but I know it made it alot easier when his baby was hungry- he would sign"eat" and they knew what he wanted- instead of having a screaming baby and not being able to figure out why.

We do very simple ASL here too, yes, no, eat, drink etc, because I use it at work it tends to carry over-also saying it at the same time. Babies who have hearing impared and signing older siblings tend to pick up the signs because they are easier developmentally. All kids "sign" by putting their arms up when they want to be lifted before they can utter "up", it's the same concept.

i have heard about doing this and there was an arcticle in one of the parenting magazines a few years back about it. it is supposed to help alleviate some of the frustration little kids have when they can't get the right words out. they suggested simple signs for basic needs like milk, apple, jucie, and signs for moods like tired, sad, sleepy, and the like so that if they can't think of the word, they could use a sign instead.