Have you seen The Tweenies episode where they sign about bananas? As I type I have that song stuck in my head, ‘I like bananas……’, having children really has puddle my brain!

Yesterday Mara slept through lunchtime then we were rushing to take her sister to a Birthday party at 1pm. We had to wake her to get her into the car so I sat and fed her a banana as my husband drove us to the party venue. I put a chunk into her mouth as I was trying to save on mess then carried on chatting. I turned round to find her signing banana.

To an adult the sign for banana is quite straightforward, you simply mime peeling a banana but I think it is quite a fiddly sign for a baby.

Having an older brother and sister who are rather keen on chocolate she now has a taste for it too. She attempts to say chocolate but it sounds more like chotchet and now uses the sign.

She is trying really hard to talk. She will pick up a book then sit down in her bouncer chair making noises as though she is reading the story, very cute!

We were in a cafe today eating chocolate cake. Mara knows the sign for cake but I thought I would introduce the sign for chocolate. This sign uses the same handshape as the letter ‘c’, you tap the ‘c’ shape on your chin. Mara was sat on my knee and wasn’t looking at me, rather than sign chocolate on my chin I did it on hers. She then turned round to me and signed it on my chin. What was even more impressive was that she said ‘chochchate’ at the same time.

I’ve not been very good at keeping up to date with this blog recently, since it is the school holidays life has been rather hectic.

Mara has continued to sign away and has picked up some new signs – cake and ‘all gone’. I’ve only signed ‘all gone’ to her in the context of food, I have used it to mean that she is finished eating. She isn’t a great eater, the little monkey throws her food off the highchair then signs to tell me that it has all gone.

The other day her brother was helping her to play with a shape sorter toy. She managed to get one of the shapes throw the hole, clapped and then signed all gone. I was surprised to see her use the sign since I’d only ever used it at the dinner table.

Mara has only just started to clap in the past week, she is almost one year old. I’ve read that when babies wave and clap it is generally a clue that they are ready to sign. My daughter has been signing for several months now yet only just started to clap her hands.

Two or three weeks ago we went to the seaside for the day. We stopped at a pub to have some lunch. Mara started to sign dog and attempt to say the word. We were looking all round trying to see where there was a dog. I then realised that the song, ‘who let the dogs out’, was playing on the radio. Her Grandad is very proud of her ability to sign, he has been telling everyone he meets about this. He was pushing her through John Lewis on Saturday when she started to sign dog, she had spotted a cuddly dog toy on display.

It is wonderful to be able to communicate with her so well, without being able to sign we’d not know what was going through her mind in situations like these. Likewise, on Sunday when my husband was carrying her she was signing away as she’d spotted some pigeons on the ground.

I mentioned above that she now signs cake.   She might not be a great eater but if she is offered cake she soon hoovers it up! The first time she copied me signing cake it looked more like the sign for more. She appeared to realise this and corrected her handshape. When we were in the shopping centre on Saturday she signed cake out of the blue. As far as I know there wasn’t any cake in sight but there was a really strong smell of cookie being baked in Millies cookie shop round the corner. Do you think she could have been why she signed cake? I have no idea if a baby her age could make an association like that.

Her second tooth came through last week, it gave her quite a bit of discomfort for a few days. She has been very congested and has been tugging her ear a lot as though she is in pain. I have signed hurt quite often, pointing to her ear and asking if it hurts. So far, she hasn’t signed this herself.

A Chelltune customer recently asked me if there is a sign for yes. She said she had three different signing books yet she’d still not found a sign for ‘yes’.

In Sign Language there is a sign for yes but it often isn’t used. As far as I am aware, the Deaf community see it as being quite patronising for someone to sign yes or no.

There is simply no need to sign with your hands as you can nod or shake your head.

In British Sign Language we use what we call classifier signs, this is when a handshape represents another object, for example we use two fingers to represent legs. These two fingers can walk, jump, lie down, sit, etc, just as legs do. Another classifier is to use your closed fist handshape to represent a head. The head can nod to sign yes or shake to sign no. As I mentioned above, Deaf people tend not to use these signs.

I used to work with someone who is Deaf and also has learning disabilities/some visual impairment. He would not accept a nod/shake of the head, he insisted that I used the sign for yes/no. I got into a bad habit of signing it all the time and used to get told off by my BSL tutor!

I asked Helen, TinyTalk teacher in Northamptonshire if she uses yes/no signs in her classes. She doesn’t, she just shakes or nods her head. Heather, TinyTalk teacher for Leicester told me the same thing. Heather went on to say that when she signs ‘no more’ she uses the sign for more and shakes her head. This isn’t something I have ever signed with my children, my way so signing ‘no more’ is to sign ‘gone/finished’ while saying no more or finished. With baby signing, in my opinion there really isn’t a right or wrong way to sign, the important thing is that the child’s main caregivers can understand his/her signs and are consistent with their use. I sound like a broken record and have repeated myself many times but you must always say the word as well as sign it.

Since my daughter has learnt the sign for dog, every animal she has come in contact with has been called a dog. Last week at Woburn Safari Park she watched the sea lion display while excitedly signing dog!

Yesterday when I was picking my eldest up from preschool we saw two cats lying in the car park, again my daughter thought they were dogs. I explained that they were cats and showed her the sign, which she copied immediately (proud Mummy alert again!).

The only problem is that the lazy little tyke is signing one handed. To sign cat, you use the fingers of each hand to draw whiskers on your cheeks. She is doing it with just one hand, quite close to her mouth. At the moment it looks like her sign for eat. Luckily she is also attempting to say cat. In time her handshape should improve, as it already has with the sign for bird (this was mentioned in a previous post). Signing makes it far easier to understand her, if I only heard her saying, ‘at, at’ it could mean anything, seeing the sign too means I can easily understand that she means cat.

Animal signs seem to be becoming very popular with Mara, my other two children used animal signs a lot too. The Child’s Play, My First Animal Signs contains 48 different animal signs, it has been a favourite book in our house. It is also recommended by Scope as part of their ‘In the Picture’ campaign as the book features images of disabled children. Disabled children are portrayed along side their non-disabled peers taking part in activities.

Last week I thought my daughter had signed milk for the first time. I don’t think it was a sign as she hasn’t done it since!

I’d started to sign ‘bird’ to her recently. I hate to see food going to waste so whenever I clear the table/floor after meals any left over bits of bread are thrown to the birds. Our garden is always full of blackbirds, sparrows and pigeons. Mara will often sit by the window in her chair watching the birds. This afternoon I left her in the high chair by the window while I went to get a cloth. I came back to find her very excited, pointing her right index finger and shouting. She was making a ‘b’ sound.

After last weeks false start I was reluctant to believe that she was signing bird. Later on I talked to her about the birds and sure enough, she said ‘b’ and pointed excitedly. The correct sign for bird involves using your index and middle finger to open and close like the beak of a bird. Babies will often use their own simplified version of the sign before perfecting their hand shape. If you look at the baby signing photos on the main site, the second picture down shows a toddler signing aeroplane. Her sign for bird was very similar to that, I will try to get a photo of her tomorrow.

Sign for Easter egg

This time next week it will be Easter Sunday so I thought I would post some relevant signs.

Sign for Easter

With a week till Easter we already have a house full of chocolate eggs. Our son and eldest daughter have five eggs each. Our youngest daughter who is nearly eight months old has three. She is a little young for so much chocolate so I might need to help her eat them!

If you are looking for non chocolate Easter gifts then our bunny and chick finger puppets are ideal.

Please note that the graphics are from Let´s Sign & Write © Copyright Cath Smith 2009.