Hooray for Baby Sign Language!

By Kristie Maytom

Take the guess work out of parenting your baby and discover the joy of knowing what your baby has to say before they can talk!

This easy to follow baby sign language book provides gentle guidance for parents and carers wishing to teach their hearing baby to communicate using gestures before their baby is old enough to speak.

Featuring a great selection of baby signs and practical advice, this book is guaranteed to make teaching your baby to sign as easy as waving “bye-bye”!

One of the most fundamental human desires is to be understood. Baby sign language can give your baby a way to “talk” to you about their needs, wants, and desires in a way that’s proven to accelerate speech development.

Packed full of insightful and helpful information as told from the perspective of an experienced signing parent. The information covered is appropriate for those who have never heard of baby sign language as well as carers that have used baby sign language before and just need a bit of a refresher.

The baby signs demonstrated in this book have been carefully selected for their ease of use, helpfulness to carers and appropriateness for baby's interests and daily routine.

An alphabetical index of baby signs is at the front of the book to make it quick and easy for you to look up a sign.

All signs featured in the book are Auslan (Australian Sign Language) and have been chosen in consultation with members of the Australian Deaf community to ensure the accurateness of each sign. Using the Baby Sign and Learn program, Auslan can become a second language for you and your baby should you choose to pursue it in the future.

Baby signing can provide so many special moment and memories. There really is nothing more special than getting to know your baby. This book is the ideal resource for beginning your rewarding baby signing journey with your little one.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kristie Maytom
• Release date: Dec 21, 2011
• ISBN: 9780987116161

Book preview

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

Author: Maytom, Kristie.

Title: Hooray for baby sign language! : discover the joy of knowing what your baby has to say before they can talk / Kristie Maytom.

ISBN: 9780987116109 (pbk.)

Subjects: Language acquisition--Parent participation.

Sign language.

Other Authors/Contributors: Baby Sign and Learn.

Dewey Number: 419

Published by Baby Sign and Learn at Smashwords January 2012.

PO Box 3401

Tannum Sands QLD 4680

Australia

ABN: 28 846 249 767

www.babysignandlearn.com.au

Email: [e-mail]

Copyright Baby Sign and Learn 2011

The moral rights of the author have been asserted. The stories, suggestions and opinions of the author are her personal views only. The strategies and steps outlined in the book may not work for everyone. Due diligence and thorough research is always recommended.

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored, posted on the internet or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other, without written permission from the author and publisher of the book.

Edited: Danny Maytom.

License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Dedication

For my amazing husband Danny,

for his constant support,

and my beautiful and spirited daughter Savannah,

with whom I started this baby signing journey.

I am grateful to have you in my life.

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1: What is baby sign language?

Chapter 2: Why use baby sign language?

Chapter 3: When to start

Chapter 4: How to sign with your baby

Chapter 5: Songs to sing and sign

Chapter 6: Dictionary of baby signs

Acknowledgments

Endnotes

Preface

I knew she was trying to tell me something but I couldn’t work out what. This happened a lot...

As a first time mother, I was trying my best. Sometimes figuring out what my baby girl wanted was easy. She would bang her fists on the table when she was in her highchair, You must be hungry for more.. Fling her food across the room, Have you had enough to eat now?.

But then there were times like these when she was fed, dry, entertained, well rested and yet becoming increasingly upset because I couldn’t for the life of me work out what she was trying to say. It was times like these that she would be reduced to tears and sometimes so would I. We were both frustrated. I needed to find answers, there had to be a better way.

My name is Kristie Maytom, Mum to little Savannah, and this is our baby signing story.

I started using baby sign language with my daughter when she was 8 months. I had read something about it online and how it was a great way to communicate with pre-verbal hearing babies so I decided to give it a try.

I was sceptical to say the least and expected that signing with a baby would require months of ‘training’ which didn’t appeal to me at all. I was delighted when she took to it easily. So we just kept going, one sign at a time...

At first we focused on learning just the ‘needs’ based signs such as milk, drink, finished and more; and by 12 months she was picking up new signs every day and even pairing signs together e.g. more + strawberry.

What an exciting time, she could only speak a few words but obviously there was so much more she wanted to say and now thanks to baby sign