How Baby Signs - Part 2
Teach Your Baby Sign Language

Part 2 of How Baby Signs discusses the final stages of signing and the development of baby's expressive signing ability.

Your baby happily watched in wonder as you began using ASL for babies with her. As her awareness between signs and meaning grew, you noticed her looking at you and your hand movements more intently. She has started playing with her hands a bit more now and seems to be practicing moving them with more intention. You excitedly realize she is well on her way to producing her first sign!

Hooray...I'm a signing baby!

The first sign comes! You are so excited you can hardly contain yourself. While the first sign (sometimes signs!) baby makes is indeed exciting, realize that your baby’s first sign attempts will likely occur intermittently at first. Baby is still getting used to this whole signing business so do not get discouraged if your baby produces his first sign in the morning and then does not do it again until just before bed. Your baby may not even sign again for a few more days but understanding how baby signs will help you keep this in perspective. Again, keep in mind your little one is still figuring this infant sign language thing out so it is possible that he will sign one day and not the next for a little while. Remember to be patient and keep signing and know that your baby's expressive signing ability has just begun.

For ease of writing we are using the singular word "sign" when referring to baby’s first sign; however, it is not unusual for baby’s "first sign" to actually be more than one, especially if you have been consistently using a few signs with your infant from the onset.

How Baby Signs Part 2...
So now that your baby has experimented with using his first sign and has gotten a wonderfully positive reaction from you, he will begin to use this sign more and more until he is using it on a fairly regular basis. A very frequent happening in this phase is that your baby may use one sign to communicate many different things. It is very similar to when a baby first starts talking and uses one word to express multiple ideas. This is perfectly normal as baby suddenly understands that the action he produces with his hands not only has meaning but also gets him something he needs or wants, i.e. gets milk when he signs MILK.

11-month old AJ signs BALL

He may use this one sign for everything for a short while. Be on the lookout for what he is actually trying to communicate to you and teach him the sign for it. For example if he is signing MILK but you can see that he is really referring to a ball, you can say something like, "I see you want the BALL. Do you want to play with the BALL? Here is the BALL." Sign the word BALL each time you say it.

Since your baby grasps the idea that hand gestures can represent the things she wants, she will pick up the signs you are teaching her much more quickly and her signing vocabulary will rapidly increase. Your baby is now expressively communicating and will more often than not be using signs in the appropriate context. Your baby may still not have the muscle development to form the signs properly, or she may produce signs in reverse, mirroring how she sees you doing them, so you will want to watch for sign approximations at this point.

As you continue to sign with your baby you will be astonished by not only how quickly she is learning new signs but also by how much she has learned. We often refer to the time when baby really starts expressively communicating with signs as a sign explosion because baby can pick up and use a sign after only seeing it once or twice. Her signing recall will likely amaze you as she uses signs that you taught her way back when and can initiate conversations and tell you what is on her mind. Because she understands that she can meaningfully communicate though signs, she will inquisitively look to you to show her the signs for the things around her. This is the time when many parents say they can hardly keep up with their baby’s desire to learn more signs. We think this this is the best part!

Now that you understand how baby signs, our advice is to be prepared to have fun learning alongside your baby and know that all of your efforts have paid off...you have a signing baby!