I assume this has quite recently become a really popular thing as I'd never heard of it until I became pregnant and my sister told me about it - her friend apparently toilet trained her daugher at 16 months and put it all down to sign language (I have no idea when you start toilet training - so assume that 16 months is earlier than average)
I've been going to Sing & Sign with Maddie but only been to 2 so far so it's early days, but basically the whole session is just singing together with signs which makes it fun to do there and at home.
So far only learned basics - milk, more, eat/food, drink, no, all gone/finished, pain.
We've been taught to always say the word at the same time as signing. Urchin - I don't know if there is a sign for hungry, but I always do the 'eat/food' sign when before I give Maddie food, and during, so hopefully one day when she's hungry she will do the sign for eat and I'll know what she wants!! Some of the babies are there for the second term and they do some of the signs.
The research varies quite a lot - I've read a lot of articles from various sources and tend to treat those who stand to make money with a great deal of scepticism. My general understanding is that it doesn't really aid speech development in fact may even hinder it slightly, but by the age of 3 apparently you don't know the difference and there are certainly no long term drawbacks (nor should you expect long term benefits such as your child excelling in languages as a result!) Your child will gradually replace the signs once he/she learns the words (which you ALWAYS say at the same time as the sign anyway). The benefit is obviously that a baby can mimic your action long before they can start talking so you can have communication for many months before the baby can talk to you.
It's definitely a personal thing - we go for an hour a week and it's such a lovely fun session so even if Maddie never learns any of the signs, it's nice time spent together doing something different! But you really have to make an effort to use the signs at home, and because I'm working full time, and they don't use this at Nursery, I don't really know whether Maddie will get the hang of it or not....
LBxx
