When to Start Baby Sign Language

Here is another answer for the day for you. Another question I get asked a lot is when can you start or is there a time when it's too early or a time when it's too late to start planning with your baby?

So I generally recommend you starting around five or six months of age, only because at that point, babies are really starting to become aware of their surrounding. They are watching your hands, they are watching your eyes and your face and they are really trying to discover their world around them at that point through observation, through watching with their eyes.

And so if you are signing to them more for instance, they are really going to be watching you with your hands and listening for you to say more every time you do that sign. And that's when they are really going to start to understand that, this means more.

So every time she puts her hands together like that, it means more and now she is getting more something every time and so it's going to quick, and it's going to make sense to them. So once they become to really understand to be interested in the world around them, that's when you want to start signing with them, generally that's around 5-6 months of age.

Children will sign back to you generally between 8 and 12 months of age, sometimes it's earlier, sometimes it's later. So just keep in mind, that's generally the time-frame in which they will sign back to you. There is never a time when it's too late to start signing with your child.

I didn't start signing with my son until he was 5, because I didn't learn about signing until my daughter came around which was five years later. So I didn't start signing with my son till he was five and we used them to help him learn his sight words, the school sending home with them, and so those were the signs that I was teaching him, were those sight word signs.

So there is never a time when it's too late. So start now, just start now. It's never too early, never too late, it's just when you want to start. So just go ahead, and start.


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