At a birthday party today and another mama was asking about baby signs. My 18 month old has approximately 30 sign now (still learning more all the time) and almost as many spoken words. I started signing with him very young, with only the 3 most important things to him (nursing, eat, and water). Once he learned these we were able to add many more. bath, outside, book, milk, dog, cheese, cracker, up, shoes. . . . Of course we might be the only ones who understands some of his sings, but his being able to communicate with us is huge. I used the Baby Signs book by Linda P. Acredolo, Susan Goodwyn, Douglas Abrams as a reference tool (available from amazon or your favorite book store). I signed when he pointed to things he wanted and signed when I gave him those things and eventually he started signing back to me (I think I only showed him "cheese" three times before he did it....he just loves cheese). I am very glad I taught him to sign and do feel the effort is paying off in terms of his language development.
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