My son has a lot to say at 16 months. He babbles from morning to night, always very expressively and purposely… the problem is the vast majority of the time I have no idea what he’s saying! Thankfully, we’re not limited only to verbal babbles to figure out what he’s trying to say – sign language is my good friend with kids this age!

NP and I started learning basic sign after we learned that my niece was profoundly deaf. We’re hardly ASL intepreters, but you know… I can sign the text of “Brown Bear, Brown Bear,” do the signs for most major zoo animals, and offer a variety of snacks in ASL. That’s really all I need most of the time!

After signing with our two kids, I cannot imagine not having this valuable communication tool to use with them. Sometimes LB will be babbling away, with me cluelessly listening, and then he will throw in a sign – voila! I actually know what he’s saying, can reinforce his communication, and greatly reduce his frustration of trying to be understood! Sometimes he will obviously be trying to tell us something, and when he signs and we understand what he said, he literally just beams and laughs with delight!

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If you want to start signing with your children, you really don’t need a special book of program or anything – ASLpro.com has free online dictionaries. One thing we have loved, especially with AG, are Signing Time dvds. [Signing time is on PBS in some areas, but unfortunately not in ours...] They are well done and are not mind-numbingly boring – an affliction that seems common with any other dvds we have tried from the library!

Our kids have also enjoyed the books in this series- but FYI, some of the signs are different than ASL because they are published in Australia. [Sign language is regional and slightly different in different areas of the country, and "American Sign Language" is not used around the world!]

By the way, I just noticed yesterday that One Bored Mommy is holding a giveaway for a book about baby signing! You might want to hop over and enter!

Sometimes people have asked me how you start – just like spoken language, they will usually need to see the same sign many times before trying it themselves. With both of the kids we started signing frequently with them when they were around 6 months old – LB is 16 months and now has a pretty decent sign vocabulary.

Signing has really worked for us!