I've heard that it can lead to less frustration when the child has a means to communicate with the parents. If they know enough to be able to sign their brains are developed enough to want to communicate something.
As a counter-point, my daughter did not pick up on sign language at all. The advice that we got was to stick with a single sign and keep at it until she signed it back at us. My wife chose "Milk," but that was probably a poor choice. I don't think that she recognized "Milk" as being an object until well after she was speaking. It wasn't until she started drinking non-breast milk that she started saying "milk."
Now she's 19 months old and the only sign language that she know is "more," but she has an great vocabulary. She can even say her own name and the names of all of her friends. (It's also really cute when she says 'zombie')
> I've heard that it can lead to less frustration when the
> child has a means to communicate with the parents.
Absolutely. Our youngest kids learned a small handful of signs (five or so) before they could speak, and it made things much easier. "More", "milk" (was hard to teach, but when it stuck it was great), "banana", and few others. Someone else here said "done" was useful, and I wish we would have done that one.
As a counter-point, my daughter did not pick up on sign language at all. The advice that we got was to stick with a single sign and keep at it until she signed it back at us. My wife chose "Milk," but that was probably a poor choice. I don't think that she recognized "Milk" as being an object until well after she was speaking. It wasn't until she started drinking non-breast milk that she started saying "milk."
Now she's 19 months old and the only sign language that she know is "more," but she has an great vocabulary. She can even say her own name and the names of all of her friends. (It's also really cute when she says 'zombie')