We made a video of Ellen doing all the signs she knows and saying all her words. It is kind of long, but adorable.
Some people have asked about Ellen doing sign language. We got her two of the Baby Signing Time DVD's for Christmas last year when she was 10 months old. My cousin, Kristen, had seen success using them with her daughter and I really liked the idea of helping Ellen learn to communicate even before she learned to talk. For the first few months, she enjoyed watching them, and even though we did the signs with her, she never did anything back. Around 12 months, she started to do a few and over the months has picked up more and more. Every once and a while, she'll just do a new one out of the blue and surprise us. She doesn't do them all "correctly", but we know what she's saying so it works. Over time, she has also corrected some of the signs she does as we keep showing them to her correctly. She is 20 months now and does all 32 signs taught on the DVDs and a few more that we have taught her or she made up.
She didn't really start learning new words until she was about 18-19 months. Until then, she just said mama, dada, and duck. It has been so fun to listen to her learn to articulate new words. When she has learned to say a word that she used to sign, she either doesn't do the sign anymore or she does the sign while she says the word. I really like the latter because sometimes I have a hard time knowing which word she's saying. When she does the sign with the word, I know exactly what she's trying to say.
It is so fun to watch her learn new words and communicate with us!
She didn't really start learning new words until she was about 18-19 months. Until then, she just said mama, dada, and duck. It has been so fun to listen to her learn to articulate new words. When she has learned to say a word that she used to sign, she either doesn't do the sign anymore or she does the sign while she says the word. I really like the latter because sometimes I have a hard time knowing which word she's saying. When she does the sign with the word, I know exactly what she's trying to say.
It is so fun to watch her learn new words and communicate with us!
OK, Jameson wanted to watch Ellen's video over and over "'gin." He especially liked "Fish" and "Duck" two of his favorite words. :-) She is SO cute!! I love her expressions.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad the signing worked out well for you. We taught Kaylin a few signs: more, all done, eat, and drink. They were so helpful. Maybe we'll try to do some more signing with #2. Kaylin can pretty much say anything now, which is crazy. Today she was telling me how "beautiful" a birthday card was. She also likes to say that things are "unacceptable". I can't believe that we'll soon be starting over with little people who can only communicate through crying. What will we do???
ReplyDeleteThat's so great! I especially liked her "yucky", complete with expression :)
ReplyDeleteThat's awesome! So cool that she performs for the camera! Gabe loves signing time, too and I felt exactly the same way you did about the videos. They were awesome. Oh, but I especially loved Ellen's expressions in the video. Her scrunched face/concerned look is the best. :)
ReplyDeleteThat is SO similar to our experience with the signing. It makes me sad that Madelyn doesn't do many signs anymore, but it was extremely helpful as they're learning to talk. She still often signs 'please' when she says that word. I put a list on my blog as a record, and I think she could do almost 200 signs at one point. It was awesome.
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