We’re having a family debate. Does teaching sign language to babies delay their speech? My 86-year old aunt, who served on the San Francisco Speech and Hearing Center’s Board of Directors, believes signing delays speech. My daughter, who introduced American Sign Language to each of her daughters when they were about seven months old, disagrees. Research indicates that signing helps ease a child’s frustration when she can’t speak and promotes verbal language.

My six-year old granddaughter, Juliet learned to sign but abandoned it at 18 months when she began speaking in sentences. She loves to talk and listens to adults and picks up vocabulary like a sponge.

Her little sister, Amelia, just turned two and is completely hooked on signing. Until recently, she rarely uttered a word. She has developed a large signing vocabulary and I think it’s pretty cute the way she conveys her needs. Whenever I’m not sure what she’s signing, I ask Juliet or my daughter to interpret.

But the debate that began last Thanksgiving started gnawing at my fears. As a former speech therapist, I began to worry that my aunt was right. So I asked a few of my speech therapist friends what they thought. One diplomatically said it wasn’t his area of expertise but suggested we start emphasizing more spoken language. My daughter has always spoken the word as she signed to give the benefit of both modalities. The other speech therapist offered to evaluate my granddaughter’s language development.

We have all begun to encourage Amelia to use more words and now she is speaking a lot more words. Two factors seemed to be at work here. We understood so much of what Amelia signed and thought it was so cute; we just let her keep using signs without emphasizing speaking. We also got caught up in a classic case of comparing siblings, which isn’t productive. There is such a huge variation among children in their rate of vocabulary and language development.

It really comes down to respecting the individual child’s development and trusting that with time she will develop at her own rate and in her own style.

Have any of you used sign language with your grandchildren? What were the results?

You might also like:

That’s What Grandparents Are For Looking for a clever way to tell your parents or in-laws that they're going to be grandparents? Consider...

Hand in Hand Nurtures the Parent-Child Connection We parents and grandparents need all the help we can get in connecting with our children and grandchildren....

Interview with Adair Lara On May 3, I interviewed Adair Lara after she spoke at our GaGa Sisterhood meeting. She told me about...

Mercy Watson to the Rescue My five-year old granddaughter Juliet and I have a new favorite book called Mercy Watson to the Rescue....

For our March 1 meeting in Saratoga, CA, GaGa Susana will bring her two granddaughters, ages 14 and 10, to tell us how their 2007 trip to Kenya changed their lives. Susana, her daughter, son-in-law, and two granddaughters spent a week volunteering with Free the Children. They helped build a water system for a village. Now they’re all committed to helping build a better world.

Susana will share some of her impressions and lead a discussion on how we can help our grandchildren discover their passion for making a difference in the world. She will also provide resources we can use to help our grandchildren find volunteer opportunities.

If you can’t attend our meeting, you’ll be able to read a summary in the March GaGazine. Click Join Us for details on a subscription to the newsletter and membership in the GaGa Sisterhood.

You might also like:

Conversation with Adair Lara On Sunday, May 3, 2009 Adair Lara will be the guest speaker at our GaGa Sisterhood meeting in San Francisco....

Run for the Seals on March 13 A friend who's a race director sent me information about an upcoming event that sounds fun for grandparents...

Yosemite with the Grandkids—Camping or Comfort? My husband and I just spent three glorious days in Yosemite celebrating our 41st anniversary. The last...

Tales from the Sandwich Generation On the morning of our May 3 GaGa Sisterhood meeting, I received several "regrets" calls from members...

I admit it—I’ve never been good at disciplining. As a parent, I was a pushover and if I had to do it over again, I’d try much harder to be consistent and stricter. Now that I’m a grandparent I find there are times when I need to discipline, and here I go again—I hate saying “no.”

But today, I knew I had to tell my five year old granddaughter, Juliet, “no,” to show her that her behavior was not acceptable. And it broke my heart. For the past week she has had a bad cough and had to stay home from kindergarten. She has been calling me everyday for a story. Ever since her little sister, Amelia, was born two years ago, Juliet and I have had a phone ritual. She calls me for a storah—our made up word for story. Sometimes we’ll be on the phone for 45 minutes while she listens to me make up a new story. It’s my way of spending time with her long-distance.

Most of the time I can stop what I’m doing and sit with her. Her enthusiasm for my stories always inspires me and sometimes I’m amazed that I can come up with yet another new story. She always thanks me when we’re done. Today when she called, I had just walked in the door and my other phone was ringing. I told her I’d call her back.

A half hour later I had two phone messages from her: “Baba, you didn’t call me back! You’re dumb!” followed by: “Baba, I’m sorry I called you dumb!”

I called her back and told her I appreciated her apology. I understood she was having a hard time waiting for me to call back. “What were you feeling when you called me the first time?” I asked. She replied, “I was mad that you didn’t call me.”

I told her I felt sad when she called me dumb. I asked her how she could have said it differently. She thought for a minute and said: “I’m waiting for you to call me and I’m angry you’re taking so long.”

After we resolved the problem, I told Juliet that I would not tell her a story today because of her phone message. It was a difficult decision for me and I could feel my heart breaking. But I followed through and we said goodbye.

You might also like:

The Good-Enough Grandparent My friend, Judy, and I were talking about our grandchildren. She was feeling guilty because she didn’t...

Grandmas Just Wanna Have Fun My friend, Shanna frequently complains about her relationship with her daughter. The problem: her daughter...

Grandparenting Class Aims to Enlighten New Grandparents Quincy Adams Harding gets my vote for the luckiest ten-month old in Silicon Valley. Three weeks before...

Hand in Hand Nurtures the Parent-Child Connection We parents and grandparents need all the help we can get in connecting with our children and grandchildren....

On a recent trip to the library I was looking through the picture books for my five-year old granddaughter, Juliet, and came upon an old favorite: Caps For Sale. I loved that book when I was a child, imagining what it would be like to try and balance 17 hats on my head like the man in the story. I read it to my children when they were new readers because the words are repetitious and easy to follow. I brought it home to read to Juliet, curious about whether it still had appeal for another generation.

Juliet loved seeing the peddler stack his 17 hats on his head and try to sell them for 50 cents a cap. But the part that cracked her up was his antics to get the caps back after he falls asleep under a tree. When he awakens, the caps are gone. He looks up in the tree and discovers 17 monkeys, each one wearing one of his caps. Kids love repeating his lament: You monkeys, you give me back my caps! I won’t tell you how it ends in case you haven’t read it.

I always assumed the author, Esphyr Slobodkina, was a man. But Slobodkina was a Siberian woman who immigrated to the United States in 1929 and enrolled in the National Academy of Design, NYC. During the late 1930s she met author Margaret Wise Brown, author of Good Night Moon, and hoped to illustrate one of her books. Slobodkina wrote and illustrated a story with collage called Mary and The Poodies and presented it to Brown. She liked it so well the two women collaborated on many books together.

Encouraged by Brown to write her own story, Slobodkina wrote Caps For Sale, which was first published in 1938. Since then it has sold more than two million copies and is considered a children’s classic. Slobodkina was a prolific artist and and a founding member of the American Abstract Artists. At age 90 she created the Slobodkina Foundation and a museum in Long Island where people could view her work that included dolls and jewelry. She was a leader in the abstract art movement until her death at age 93.

What favorite classics have you shared with your grandchildren?

You might also like:

Bargain Hunting Tips for Grandmas I know two grandmas who love to shop for bargains for their grandchildren. They’ve found some great...

Sourpuss and Sweetie Pie My six-year old granddaughter, Juliet was here for a visit. To prepare, I stocked up on library books,...

Reading Aloud to Your Child I remember reading Pat the Bunny to my two children when they were just a few months old. As they became...

Eye of My Heart Sees All, Tells All About Grandmotherhood It's all there—every thought, feeling, or reaction you've ever had about being a grandmother Eye of...