For those of you who use sign language with your babes, what are the most important signs you find yourself and your little one using? We plan on using it with LO and DH wants to start learning it now so he has a grasp on it. I know quite a bit from using it with my students at work (majority are non-verbal Autistic kiddos), but I don't know what to narrow it down to. So far I was thinking: milk, drink, eat, thank you, please, more. But not sure if there is more I should be considering, and was wondering what other moms were doing before plunking down a ton of cash for books on the topic.
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All done has been useful. He doesn't have to throw a fit or whine to communicate that he's all set.
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We do more, eat, milk, all done.
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We only do "all done" and "more". She verbalized pretty early for water (she doesn't drink milk). I do like the idea of "please" and "thank you"!
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We only did : all done, more, please, eat, milk, drink. She's 17 month and still does them along with using the words.
She made up her own for "crackers". It's pretty cute lol
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My LO is pretty young, but I've been prompting a sign for "milk" and "tickle" before giving her either, just for early exposure. For my non-verbal students, the most handy signs have typically been "bathroom", "eat/hungry" and "all done".
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Not to thread jack, but do you have a resource that would be good for teaching signs? I tried teaching my little man a few months ago a few signs but wasn't consistent. He's not really verbal but he's getting there. Surprisingly, the signs stuck! He knows please and thank you but everything else (like 'hungry') is his own sign language. Not always something I can understand. Maybe if I equip him we'll have less melt downs.
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more, milk, food, water, all done
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More, all done, milk, and eat were the most necessary IMHO. We also do bath, diaper, and we're working on thank you and please.
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The signs we use everyday are: more, all done, help, please and thank you.
Signs we tried to use but never caught on are: water, milk
My son also does a lot of signs for other various words (e.g. bath, I love you) and animals (in combination with sounds) that I don't think we necessarily taught him or maybe showed him once or twice.
I wouldn't buy any books. We took some books and Signing Time DVDs out from the public library that were great. I also just google signs I want us to learn. Lastly, we downloaded the ASL Baby Sign and Learn app (paid version) which is awesome! At 18 months, my son can watch the signs and imitate many of them while trying to say the words as well.
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We only use more, eat, water, milk, and all done. He's 17 months, though, and we're trying to work on words more now, though.
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Sorry is important now that he is a toddler.
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The ones that we found most valuable prior to LO verbalizing her needs well were: milk, eat, more, all done, thank you, and please. Everything else was fun, and even as a very verbal 23 month old, she'll still sign things along with saying them when she's excited - like if she sees a cat she'll shout "cat" and sign it frantically a couple times.
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Thankfully, LO learned signs at daycare and we just had to reinforce them. More and all done were our first signs and super useful, then milk, eat, please, thank you. After that she learned signs like elephant and bird, but also water, dada, mama, work, and wait. Wait has been great. She was able to sign "dada work" before she could say it.
@owlmom: ha! my LO (21 mos) does this too! especially with colors--shouts and signs at the same time. Glad I am not the only one.
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We just did more and all done and they are so useful. The more sign has been extended to include 'help please!', and 'please' if it is accompanied by a cheesy smile on his part:).
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I would add hurt to what PP have mentioned. I think someone also mentioned help. That one was really helpful to avoid frustration.
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We use more and all done the most and for the longest time, but milk has also been necessary (instead of her grabbing at my shirt she can sign for milk). We also use eat and just learned please, which she uses to manipulate me
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We only use "more" and "all done". She uses "more" only in reference to food, however. I tried to teach her "drink" and "diaper" (to signify a change), but she learned the words "juice" and "poo-poo" before mastering the signs, so uses those instead. Oh, and it's not ASL, but she's recently been doing a cute little fist pump to tell us that she wants to dance/listen to music. So your LO may come up with some of their own signs regardless of what you teach him/her.
Help is a really good idea - we'll have to start using that one.
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She only uses more...but she uses it for EVERYTHING. More milk, more food, I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, more outside time. I wish she would pick up "all done" and "milk" because it would help me distinguish things but having "more" is helpful, at least.
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At 12 months, the only sign she uses regularly is *all done* . . . but it sure spares everyone a ton of frustration at meal time!
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@NaturallyCathy: I know that for my own resources I tend to use lifeprint.com to look up signs that I want to teach my students and I don't know off the top of my head. As far as stuff for the kiddos, I totally agree with Signing Time! They are fun songs and it engages the kids!
To everyone else: Thank you so much for your in put!!! I definitely added some words to my list and feel good about incorporating sign language when LO gets here!
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We didn't actively teach LO sign language and only used a few -- all done, more, and eat. LO didn't start to talk until 18 months, and those few signs really helped us communicate. Now he is an active toddler with a huge vocabulary and stringing together sentences and questions. I miss the old days when he used to sign to us.
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