By T.O.P. reader and contributing writer Michelle

We’re big fans of Signing Time … and for those of you who may be contemplating teaching your baby/toddler sign language, I’d like to share our success story with you!

After Kayla was born and her diagnosis of Down syndrome was confirmed I found an online community that I quickly joined. A lot of the moms on there talked about Signing Time and how much it had helped their children; especially since most kids with Down syndrome will have a speech delay. I kept these videos in the back of my mind.

In the meantime I bought a pocket-size book with about 60 ASL signs and thought I would start using that. I honestly don’t remember when we started signing those first few words to Kayla, probably after she was 8 months old. I guess we started with “more”, “milk” and then “eat.” I know in the beginning we weren’t consistent about signing the word every time we used it, like you should do, but we got there eventually. When she was probably closer to a year is when I think we started using the signs more consistently.

I finally decided to purchase volume 1 of the Signing Time series to see what all the hype was about. Kayla wasn’t the only one watching the videos either, Joe and I watched them so we could learn right along with her! I thought the video was great for teaching sign language as Rachel would sign it, the word was printed on the screen, a child’s voice said the word and then gave a description of the sign, plus all of the kids throughout the video who were doing the signs too. It was a great way to reinforce the sign by repetition.

My friend Sue has a son who is 4 months younger than Kayla. A few months after I bought that first volume we were talking about sign language (she had also been planning on teaching Harrison ASL and had bought the same pocket-size book I had) She was telling me she had started using some signs with him but he didn’t really seem to get it or respond back. I told her about the videos and then had Kayla “perform”, “Kayla show Sue ‘fish’, now can you do ‘eat’? how about ‘dog’ and ‘ball’” and she signed them all. Sue was impressed. I told her she could borrow the video and see how Harrison liked it. Within a week Harrison was showing me all the signs he had learned from that first volume. Sue was so impressed with how quickly he picked up the signs that she said she was buying the whole series (at that time there were 6 volumes) and I mentioned we were getting Kayla the rest of the series too. Eventually 2 more of our friends borrowed that first volume to see for themselves if their kids would also pick up the signs - and of course within about a week or two they were also signing.

By the time Kayla was 20 months old she knew 14 signs, while not a huge vocabulary for that age, it was exciting for us. I wish we had started the videos much sooner! While she knew these signs she wasn’t really using them to communicate with us - she would sign them while watching the videos, or if we said the word, but didn’t seem to initiate it much on her own.

Then came the day we were at the commissary. We were in line for the register and she was sitting in the cart. All of a sudden she signed “dog”. I had a quizzical look on my face wondering why she would be signing that as I knew there weren’t any dogs in the store. I thought maybe I misunderstood her and she wasn’t signing at all, but she did it again so I casually looked around me. Then I spotted it. There was a display of dog food with a dog’s face all over the bags. I can’t tell you how I excited I was to realize she recognized and signed dog on her own without any prompting from me. I wanted to scream and cheer and jump up and down in that store! But I contained myself. I leaned in close and told her “yes that is a dog - good job” and how proud I was. I couldn’t wait for Joe to get home so I could tell him what she did.

By the time she was 2 years old she knew over 50 signs and was using them to communicate with us - signing things in books we looked at, as a plane flew over us, asking for a cracker. This was such a big deal to us because she wasn’t very verbal at all and this helped tremendously in being able to “talk” to her.

I remember going out with Kayla and she would usually end up signing “thank you” to someone for something…most people thought she was blowing them a kiss! I explained that she was signing “thank you” and usually they would respond with “wow she knows sign language?” I used any opportunity to spread the word about these videos and that was usually a great conversation starter!

She did start to vocalize words along with her signs (which by the time she was 3 she knew over 100 signs -thanks to all 13 volumes that we now own!) and eventually she stopped using the majority of the signs. We still watch the videos and she’ll still sign sometimes, but it’s mostly verbal words now. I’m so thankful to Signing Time though for helping us learn a new language that enabled us to communicate with each other.

There’s a new set of DVDs coming out soon and you can bet we’ll be buying those too!

Thanks for all the moving well-wishes. I think we definitely have the greatest readers of all time. The contests will be back sometime next week as soon as I have my internet connection working at the new place and my laptop dug out from among the boxes. In the meantime, please enjoy our guest reviewers and be sure to visit them at their home bases if they’ve provided you with a link. Have a fabulous weekend, and if you’re in the mood for shopping check the TOP Shops for discount codes first!