It promotes language development.
Secondly, we see that children can usually communicate manually before they
can communicate
orally. An example of that might be for an infant to do "more," with their
hands
its easier than saying "more," with your lips
and so by being able to communicate
wants and needs, it reduces frustration not just for the infant but also for the
parents.
The earlier the better. The more a child
sees a signed word or hears a spoken word,
they learn it faster so as soon as you
want to dive into learning sign that's the best time to start.
Children will usually start communicating things they want
or need. For example milk would be one of the
signs that a lot of times children will
say or sign early. This is just actually made, when you think about milking a
cow,
that's where that comes from, mom and dad.
Get a book, check out one of the DVDs from the library, start learning the
the vocabulary, it's nice to kind of keep a list
and check it off with mom and dad. The more you use it, the easier it becomes
and the more natural.
One thing that I think some parents do is their thinking so much
about their signs that they're not communicating
naturally the way they would with their child and you don't want to do that. You
want to be just natural and if it starts to get in the way of
communication, if you thinking more about what you're signing
thing what you're saying and the way you're interacting, you want to slow down
a little bit.