Gestures

So, Tray and I never introduced sign language to Penny. Awhile ago we had a babysitter who did some sign language with her. I was telling this to a friend of mine and she said, “Oh, you better watch out. I have friends who did the baby sign language thing and their kid took forever to learn how to talk because all he would do was use sign language instead of say the word.” As some of you are aware, I have a genetic hearing problem and not being sure if Penny would inherit that or not (though there is no indication of that so far), I wanted to make sure her talking took precedence. So we actually purposefully chose to not teach her sign language. Well, I have since read that there have been studies that indicate that sign language doesn’t delay verbal development. After I read that about four or five months ago or so I started doing the sign for “milk” with her, but she never caught on to it. She understood it when I did it, but never tried to do it herself. She always just pointed to the boppy or said “bop” instead, which I figured was better anyway. Starting this week though she’s been making the sign for milk! This follows her making her own invented sign for lotion which is just her rubbing her tummy. Plus, she’ll rub her hands together when we get near the sink to indicate hand washing – and she’ll make the same sign in her highchair when she is done eating and it is time to wipe her hands off. I taught her how to splash the water in the bathtub, and when she sees water in a book, she’ll sort of hit the book as though splashing the water so that motion has kind of become her word for water. She’ll also “knock” on the door and if you say “door” she’ll make that motion. And of course, she’ll pull on her diaper in a certain way to let us know about that. It’s kind of neat that in addition to her verbal skills taking off, she has seemed to figure out that she can use gestures as words too. The next thing we need to do is re-learn waving hello and bye-bye. She started waving some months ago now, but hasn’t done it in a long time.