We had dinner with friends last night whose son is two month younger than Abby. He's a cutie and has a great smile. What struck me is that he's doing the exact same things as Abby was - learning to walk, reverting a little in speech - but Anny and I have completely forgotten about that stage. It's a bit weird, really, since it was not long ago.
We got to talking about signing. They are actively trying to increase his vocabulary through signing, while we are kind of letting it plateau at where we have gotten, with a hope that soon enough she will begin to use her speech. I am not so sure that we should be pulling back now!
One morning last week I discovered Signing Time on our local PBS station. It's a well done, very informative half-hour of sign language learning. Each episode has a theme. So far Abby and I have watched Colors and Rooms of the House. Very cool. It's easier for ME to learn through seeing it in action than it is to figure out what the still images in a book are trying to say.
The third reason that I think we should really keep on teaching Abby signs is that she is coming up with them on her own, and often they're the ASL standard signs! In addition to the signs I told you last week that she knows, over the last week or two she has shown us:
Open - as in - I know my teacake is in here, please open it
Sunscreen - rubbing her arms before we go outside
Hat - thanks to school, Abby knows she needs a hat to go outside
Peanut Butter - okay, this one is a bit out of the norm. She grabs a spoon, points to the cabinet and licks her lips. It's adorable.
I'm sure that there are others she has done that we are totally missing. It's adorable and we're glad that we have done this since we can ask her why she's crying or upset and she can tell us if she's hungry or thirsty, rather than just scream on the floor.
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4 comments:
The peanut butter sign still cracks me up! It was great having dinner with y'all last night - hope Abby went to bed without too much trouble. Critter was bonkers by the time we got home!
http://www.handspeak.com/tour/index.php
:)
Amy
We hesitated to teach Samantha signs, but when she stalled in her spoken language development, learning signs REALLY helped her frustration level decrease by enhancing her ability to communicate. She's now starting to replace her signs with words, something I had worried about. It really annoyed me when someone told me that a sign Samantha was doing was "wrong". So what? She's doing a modified baby sign that is allowing her to communicate something. If she was deaf and would need signs for the rest of her life, maybe it would make a difference, but there is no "wrong" in what she's doing. Abby's peanut butter sign is probably just perfect! She's picking things up so quickly now, I bet!
This is the best age ever. You'll really start to see her creativity come out with the way she's starting to communicate. I love the peanut butter sign!
Man, they have so much to say... it's just getting to the point of saying it :)
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