“Gestures are incredibly important building blocks for language development. You may feel like you just want to focus on words, but gestures and imitation are very important in learning speech! ” - Ms. Rachel

Most babies that are in WeeHands Signing Babies classes are between 4 and 10 months of age when they start. Over the last few years, the average age of the babies in our Signing Babies has gotten slightly younger.

When you are looking at a babies receptive (understanding) abilities, keep in mind that parents who are Deaf start signing with their babies from the day they are born, and their ability to understand at 9 months is amazing versus babies who are not signed to...an understanding of 70 signs vs. maybe 5 verbal words. Regarding expressive abilities, babies, in general, will typically start signing back between 9 and 12 months (born to Deaf parents or not). We have had a few stories of babies signing back earlier. All babies are different!

I started signing with my own children when they were 6 months of age. Knowing what I know now, I would have started earlier with both my wee ones. That said, Joshua signed back at 9 months (fish) and Sabrina signed back at 11 months (no, more, eat - not all at the same time, but within the same week!).