Here's a clip of my 18 month daughter signing and piping in to a simple rhyme. Some of the signs are ASL and some are not.
It is meant to share is that kids learn best through play; in this instance the actions and signs + the simple sound of the rhyme engages and enables her to remember the words in a fun way.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Saturday, April 10, 2010
how it all started...
Shortly after I had my daughter (she is my first born and so far my only child), I suffered from post natal depression. I remembered a despondent feeling and somehow feeling no sense of closeness and attachment to her. I recalled wondering if that was what parenthood was about and if that's all to it?
I subsequently got better and went back to work after 3.5 months of maternity break and within around a month of my return, I was retrenched due to the financial crisis last year. I was once again at home and somehow I was still not feeling that "wonderful love at first sight" bonding and gush of immediate love that everyone was talking about.
A friend and one of the few persons that I know that is so beautiful inside and out and one whom has been there for me on numerous occasions (that's you Bern!) suggested for me to try baby signing. 'Baby signing?' I remembered thinking to myself. I recalled reading about it many years ago in an UK Parenting magazine and then thought, "why not, sounds like fun?"
That started an incredibly beautiful and wonderful journey for both my daughter and I. I started to understand better and started actually having fun and enjoying her a lot more. Till this day, I am just amazed at how far we have both travelled, how much we bonded and are still bonding, and how much she wants to communicate with me. My daughter is currently 18 months old and is a very vocal little person. She produced her first sign around 6 - 7 months and from then on, it went from a new sign a week to a few every week and now that she is older, she picks up a few new signs everyday.
One of the common questions I am asked a lot is 'wouldn't signing delay speech?' To which, according to studies and books, research suggests otherwise where it has been said to aid speech development. From my personal experience, that seems to be true for my daughter - she now is able to string words together to form short phrases - instead of gesturing to me and say "sit" when she wants me to sit down, she now says "mimi, sit down"; instead of just pointing to a chair and say "chair", she now tells me "that red chair". Many of my friends have commented how advanced her speech is and even asks me how many words she speaks. I did not keep count when she passed the 150 words mark. These are words that she is able to speak clearly and does not include words she signs but cannot speak as yet such as "animals", "hippopotamus", etc.
Many of these words that she knows, understands and verbalises are introduced to her via signing. This is because most babies' first words are nouns and baby signing reinforces that. Also, I believe that a signing parent / caregiver tends to talk more to a baby than a non-signing one as conscientious effort is put into associating the item and the sign and the sound of the word. For e.g. many parents would start off by teaching the sign and the word milk. How I taught my daughter that word and sign was to sign the word everytime I bring the milk to her. Hence at every milk feed, I would have signed and said the word at least 5 times - 'baby, would you like some milk?' 'Yes, milk tastes so good!', etc.
Everytime the item and / or sign is shown, the word is being said. I also recalled reading that a baby needs to hear the word a minimum of 500 times before they are able to verbalise the word. With signing, the words are repeated many times so perhaps thats how it aids in speech development.
As I am a full time working mum, I have a helper to take care of my daughter when I am at work. My helper has also embarked on the signing journey and is able to communicate very well with my daughter too.
Thats how and why I started this blog - to share my personal experience with signing and teach it. I hope that more people will take this on as there are so many benefits to signing with your child. I sincerely believe that you and your child will have as much fun as I did and do, everyday. For my child never fails to bring a smile to my face after I knock off from work every evening and listening to her share and sign to me her perceptions of her little world.
Happy signing!
I subsequently got better and went back to work after 3.5 months of maternity break and within around a month of my return, I was retrenched due to the financial crisis last year. I was once again at home and somehow I was still not feeling that "wonderful love at first sight" bonding and gush of immediate love that everyone was talking about.
A friend and one of the few persons that I know that is so beautiful inside and out and one whom has been there for me on numerous occasions (that's you Bern!) suggested for me to try baby signing. 'Baby signing?' I remembered thinking to myself. I recalled reading about it many years ago in an UK Parenting magazine and then thought, "why not, sounds like fun?"
That started an incredibly beautiful and wonderful journey for both my daughter and I. I started to understand better and started actually having fun and enjoying her a lot more. Till this day, I am just amazed at how far we have both travelled, how much we bonded and are still bonding, and how much she wants to communicate with me. My daughter is currently 18 months old and is a very vocal little person. She produced her first sign around 6 - 7 months and from then on, it went from a new sign a week to a few every week and now that she is older, she picks up a few new signs everyday.
One of the common questions I am asked a lot is 'wouldn't signing delay speech?' To which, according to studies and books, research suggests otherwise where it has been said to aid speech development. From my personal experience, that seems to be true for my daughter - she now is able to string words together to form short phrases - instead of gesturing to me and say "sit" when she wants me to sit down, she now says "mimi, sit down"; instead of just pointing to a chair and say "chair", she now tells me "that red chair". Many of my friends have commented how advanced her speech is and even asks me how many words she speaks. I did not keep count when she passed the 150 words mark. These are words that she is able to speak clearly and does not include words she signs but cannot speak as yet such as "animals", "hippopotamus", etc.
Many of these words that she knows, understands and verbalises are introduced to her via signing. This is because most babies' first words are nouns and baby signing reinforces that. Also, I believe that a signing parent / caregiver tends to talk more to a baby than a non-signing one as conscientious effort is put into associating the item and the sign and the sound of the word. For e.g. many parents would start off by teaching the sign and the word milk. How I taught my daughter that word and sign was to sign the word everytime I bring the milk to her. Hence at every milk feed, I would have signed and said the word at least 5 times - 'baby, would you like some milk?' 'Yes, milk tastes so good!', etc.
Everytime the item and / or sign is shown, the word is being said. I also recalled reading that a baby needs to hear the word a minimum of 500 times before they are able to verbalise the word. With signing, the words are repeated many times so perhaps thats how it aids in speech development.
As I am a full time working mum, I have a helper to take care of my daughter when I am at work. My helper has also embarked on the signing journey and is able to communicate very well with my daughter too.
Thats how and why I started this blog - to share my personal experience with signing and teach it. I hope that more people will take this on as there are so many benefits to signing with your child. I sincerely believe that you and your child will have as much fun as I did and do, everyday. For my child never fails to bring a smile to my face after I knock off from work every evening and listening to her share and sign to me her perceptions of her little world.
Happy signing!
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