Baby Sign Language Basics: Early Communication for Hearing Babies and Toddlers

OUR EXPERIENCE WITH SIGNING: I'd read about baby signing a little before my son was born and decided it was something I wanted to try. I bought the Baby SIgn Language Basics DVD when I did not receive it as a shower gift. I wasn't sure how it would go, especially as my husband wasn't as enthusiastic as I was about it. Around six months, I started signing "more" with my son a little, then kinda gave up because he just looked like he was too young to really be taking it in. Then, out of the blue one day, he signed "more" to me while I was feeding him! I couldn't believe it! I hadn't even been consistently using the sign, yet he had still picked up on it. This made me realize that you don't have to be religious with the signing for it to work. After that, it was much less intimidating. So we started adding a few more easy signs. Eat, milk, mommy, daddy, cookie, cracker, fruit. He picked up on it so quickly! I cannot explain how amazing it is to be able to communicate with your child before they can form words. Even after my son began "talking," we wouldn't have known what he was trying to say most of the time without the signs to go along with it. Some people worry that signing can slow speech development, but if I'm not mistaken, there's research to the contrary. In our experience, I think maybe our son was slower to begin speaking out loud, but he could still sign more words than his peers could say and in the long run I think this gave him an advantage. While "speaking" was a slower concept for him to develop, he had a head start on the concept of "communicating." I think him being able to tell us what he wanted helped us avoid some tantrums and fussing. Talking was kinda like a light bulb to him. One day, he had the confidence to start trying new words and he would say anything. By 18 months he was talking as much as his peers and had dropped most of his signs. Now that we've started signing with his 6 month old sister, he has picked up most of his signs again! My advice: Start around 6 months. Don't feel like you have to be an expert or sign constantly. You can do as much or as little as you want, but I think it makes a huge difference! OUR EXPERIENCE WITH THIS PRODUCT: This is a great, affordable resource for learning to sign to your baby. I bought the DVD before my son was born and that's all I had. The DVD is definitely the best way to learn the signs. Seeing them done by an actual person is so much easier than reading "directions" in a book. That being said, I have since bought this DVD and book combo for expecting friends and after flipping through it I was jealous and wished I had a book too. The book is a great quick reference to remind you of a sign. Whenever I forgot a sign, I had to put the DVD in and navigate the menus to find it. The book would have been a lot easier. That's why this is such a great combo! The signs they choose, for the most part are very practical. Some of them we never use enough for my son to learn (like the holidays, crab, starfish, mountain, sand, teacher) and some that I wish were there that weren't (snacks, blocks, pillow). But really, most of what we wanted was there. Plus, a bunch we never got around to teaching him. I also like that they give alternative signs on some of the important ones that are difficult for babies to do. The signs are presented alphabetically. You can watch them all in order, watch one starting letter at a time from the menu or start at a specific word. Basically, each starting letter is a "chapter" on the DVD, and the starting letter sign list is the "scene selection." It would have been nice to have an additional menu, where I could view the signs in groups (animals, foods, colors, actions, objects, feelings, commands), but I realize this would have been pretty complicated to organize on the DVD. I actually typed out the entire list in excel and grouped them by category so that I could learn them that way. I thought it was easier to learn them by category instead of alphabetically, as many of the same types of words have similar signs. I like to get this for every expecting mom I know. (I've ordered 3 in the past in addition to the DVD only I originally bought for myself!)

I very much enjoyed this author's writing style. There are signs pictured in alpha order. I ended up using stickers to TAB it so I could look words up faster. Taking the time to TAB it helped me become more familiar with the signs so that was a good thing. Since getting this, I have bought other books on infant signing. They all have different words in them. I found this book to have the best selection of words. I started out teaching my infant one sign. When teaching her others, I would only introduce one or two new signs at a time. This book has been completely sufficient to get me started with signing. Now, going on her first year, I would safely guess that this book will remain relevant until she can talk as she isn't even close to learning all of the words in the book. The fact that this book has taken me through her first year is much more than I can say for her car seat which only lasts until she is 26 pounds. The biggest problem with baby sign books in general is that you can't push a button to make them work. The parent has to sign consistently to make it stick which, #1 you have to remember to do it, #2 it takes time and #3 a lot of patience.

My daughter is only 4 months old i think a little early to start teaching her but i have been reading and learning myself. I read 6 months is optimal age to start. I will be ready by then. Easy read has a lot of pictures and diagrams for hand signs. I read many benefits to teaching sign language to your child, early reading and increase vocabulary. I highly recommend trying, good luck!

This is a perfect starter set to teach your baby sign. It has the right amount of detail, going into what steps to take to set yourself up for success, and what pitfalls to avoid. The first half of the book is an easy guide on how to teach your baby sign, the second half of the book is a dictionary/index with the words and pictures of how to sign them. The DVD is pretty basic, the most helpful being an index of all the words -- you can select the word and it shows you a video of someone doing the actual sign which is a nice supplement to the pictures in the book. Based on reviews, I purchased on Amazon the "Sign Babies ASL Flash Cards, Set One: First Words" also, and they are great. They are not laminated but I got them laminated at FedEx Kinkos for $10 and that has been a perfect supplement to this book. Highly recommended!

I have just started to use this, so cannot comment much about the efficacy of sign language and our baby. But it is researched well and looks promising. However, a review of the book and DVD: The book is easy to read and understand, has a decent list of symbols, and is made even easier to grasp with the DVD. There seem to be many ASL apps with numerous signs on them that I think will go very well with this book. The app for this book doesn't seem the best - more limited than others. The book made signing with basic ASL for babies much easier than I had expected.

The first few pages are devoted to why it's helpful to learn sign language and teach your baby. This nice because I'm hoping that I can convince other family to read this, and the fact that it's short means that they're more likely to actually finish the chapter :) The next part covers the basics of the art of teaching. After the first couple pages this got repetitive. One negative about the book is that it would give an example of something to say/sign (like "lets play with the DUCK in the BATH. Does the DUCK like to take a BATH?"), and for me it would have been really helpful to have the sign off to the side of the sentence (in my example, which is *not* taken from the book, I would have liked to have seen the signs for "duck" and "bath" next to the sentence). The dictionary is very helpful. I think another helpful tool would be to group the signs by theme in another section of the book (or even a separate "take along" booklet). For example, the author talks about going to the zoo and signing the animals. But before you go to the zoo,you'd have to think , humm, we may see a monkey, a lion, an elephant, etc. so I better look up those signs and learn them before we go, rather than having a section on "animals at the zoo". The fact that it is in alphabetical order is fantastic for knowing what sign you want and finding it, I just think it would be helpful to have a "theme" section in addition.

I loved this book. And the DVD. I am a novice at ASL and I really want my Bby Girl to learn and understand me and me understand her. Thanks for this I have to get the sing along version. I am happy to say that I loved the book. Its perfect I am still attached to the book. My baby girl just turned 5 months and is catching on the signs. Bath time and duck. I also recommend going online to ASL websites where you can see how to make a sentence understandable. I dont see many parents doing this but its perfect a language just me and her. Favorite sign is Cereal!! I love this.. Love the songs for little hands they are fun for baby and great for interactive times!! "Songs For Little Hands": Activity Guide & CD (Baby Sign Language Basics) ASL site Great references!! [...]

This book and DVD were all we needed to teach our daughter sign language. It was easy to read and follow. The ideas and methods make sense and we've had a blast with it. We gave it to her daycare providers so they could get involved as well. We started teaching her signs at 10 mos. She is now 14 mos and signs regularly. She loves to use her signs and you can tell how tickled she is that she can communicate to use without just pointing and whining. Great product!

i love it. the book is good, the DVD helps a lot. My 6 months old daughter signed xtreme fast back ( the next day...) i recommend it to everyone

It's great!

Monta Briant is brilliant in producing this book that is great for parents in learning and teaching babies basic sign language to communicate. Unlike many other books that teach parents simple sign language, Briant's version is easy to understand. The pictures show clearly how most of the signs are done, and the accompanying DVD reinforces them. While we don't want the baby to be spending time watching TV, in learning these signs, he can actually watch the TV with a parent, and learn together. If any one is looking for a book to teach their babies simple sign language to speed up the process of communication, this is definitely the one book I would recommend!

the grandchildren love it

Love this! This promotes great communication for babies too young to talk. It helps parents and children to avoid a lot of frustrating situations of miscommunication.