My First Baby Signs (Baby Signs (Harperfestival))

I am the mother of a non-verbal child with both speech and motor apraxia, meaning that she cannot speak and has poor hand skills. These books are PERFECT for my daughter! There are many books out there that teach American Sign Language (ALS) to babies. The problem for many children with developmental delays is that they are unable to use the signs in ASL because they require hand coordination and motor planning that is too complex. Baby Signs by Acredolo and Goodwyn, on the other hand, allows my daughter to communicate with signs that she is perfectly able to model. THANK YOU, Drs. Acredolo and Goodwyn for creating this system and for putting together these extremely high-quality books. They have been and continue to be our 3 year old daughter's favorite books, and they have given her the precious gift of communication. PLEASE make more of these books, more baby signs, and expand the use of your system to children with developmental delays. There is, unfortunately, a large market out there of parents of children with developmental delays just waiting for you to lend them a helping hand! And for all of you with "neurotypical" children -- these books will give your baby the ability to communicate earlier than you might ever have thought possible. I've seen it in two of my friends' kids. All of the Baby Signs board books are a VERY good investment for anyone who wants to hear their child's voice. Please, please, please design more of these!

I recommend using this book as a way to get your baby started with signing. To understand the idea behind baby signing and ideas for other signs to try, you need the full Baby Signs book. This little board book is engaging and colorful and a great way to introduce signing to your baby. We started using a few signs and reading this book with our son at about 8 or 9 months. He loved this book, though at first he just looked and didn't try to use any signs. Then, suddenly one day at about 10 months, like a light switch going on, he did every sign in the book! From there he took off with signing and within a few months, used over 50 signs to communicate, including combining signs into 2-3 word "sentences". It was amazing and I cannot now imagine not being able to communicate before he could talk. My son is 3 now and an extremely verbally fluent child - I think his early experience in communicating with signs was a big factor in this. This book was a helpful way to get started. I think a key thing to remember with signing is that it's a fun interaction between you and your baby - it doesn't matter if they do the signs exactly as in the book, you can make up your own signs or do whatever works for you!

Your baby my not "take" to signing right away. It may take your patience to assist your little one in acquiring the signs. My daughter and I began reading these books and for months she didnt seem interested in singing then one day she did. Still at 20 months uses many signs. The signs help alleviate the frustration she experienced because she didnt have the vocab yet to tell me what she wanted. Her first sign was for "more" and it went one from there. I recommend it for everyone who is patient and in tune with their child.

I realize that the signs aren't true ASL signs, but I find them easy to remember, and if my daughter wants to learn ASL later in life, I don't think learning some "wrong" signs will hinder her. In fact, many times the easiest way to teach them a sign is to assign a meaning to a gesture they already make.Anyway, my daughter loves the book. It took awhile for her to start signing... the first one she did was "dog" (pant, or go woof woof... she says "a da!" but da can mean any number of things). Then we visited a friend with a bird, and I did the flap arms sign again, and something within her CLICKED. She flapped her arms whenever she wanted to see the birds.The next day, she was doing the sign for "cat" and "fish". We watched Baby Einstein "Neighborhood Animals" video (the only one of the series that she shows any interest in), and when she saw a duck she went "quack quack" (sounds like guk guk guk) and started flapping her arms. She saw a bug that was flying and started flapping her arms as well.If she sees a picture of a fish, she starts smacking her lips. I showed her the "one fish, two fish" book and asked if she wanted to read it and she smacked her lips for "fish".We also use the back page as a "quiz" page, and I ask if she sees a dog (for example) and she'll point to the dog. Granted the book doesn't have signs for eat, drink, etc... but using this book as a foundation to teach the baby that he/she can assign a sign to objects and animals, it's easy to build on from there.

My husband and I have been working on signs with our 14 month old son for about 10 months now. I'm not sure why (maybe the pictures in the book help him visualize another baby making the sign), but after purchasing this book and working on the signs in the book with him, he is picking it up so quickly. Within 2 days, he learned 4 new signs. I think that the book offers children learning signs another perspective besides mom & dad making a sign. I want to get some of the other baby signs books by this author to supplement what we have gotten from this book. Even though some of the words aren't those that are 'essential' (like thirsty, hungry, eat, milk, etc.) the book does help your baby and you begin to communicate in this way.