Listed below are some stories submitted by parents who have attended classes and others. These stories highlight the real benefits of signing in the lives of children and their carers. Many thanks to those who shared these amazing insights!

Shortly after starting baby sign Caomihe went off her food for a while.  She woke up in the middle of the night crying and doing the sign for milk.  This was the first sign she used and I thought it was amazing she was able to communicate to me that she was hungry.  I gave her a bottle which she drank very quickly and was then happy to go back to sleep.

Caoimhe woke up in the middle of the night crying and I wasn't sure what was wrong. I did the usual, checked her nappy, her temperature and gave her cuddles but she was still very unsettled.  Then I realised she kept scratching her hand and pointing to her teeth.  The previous week at baby sign we had learnt about being ill and medicine. I realised Caoimhe was asking for medicine (using an adapted sign as the normal sign was too difficult for her at this time) because her teeth were sore.  About 5-10 minutes after I had given her the medicine she was much more settled and happy to go back to sleep!

(Nicola, Caoimhe's mum)


Daire is using quite a lot of signs, making communication so much easier. He recently learned the sign for 'pig' and the sound it makes when at his cousins birthday party. He was getting tired and signed 'home', 'eat', 'bed' to us, making his wishes very clear! Before we left, his aunt asked if if he was going home to bed, doing the 'bed' sign, while making snoring noises. Daire looked at her and did the sign for 'pig'. He obviously thought she was making a pig sound, rather than a snoring sound. When we alll went into fits of laughter, he didn't understand what was so funny!!

(Paul and Ann, Daire's parents)


 When Heather was little in her cot at night. Often when she'd cry we'd go in and instead of all the guessing is it a feed? does she need changed? etc, she would sign for her duck. It was usually tidied away onto a shelf when she hadn't played with it in the day. So we'd just give her the duck and everyone go back to sleep pretty quickly!

Heather started nursery at about 15/16 months . She was in a highchair at home for meals. After about 2 days Heather refused to go into her highchair at home saying no signing 'chair' and 'baby'. She was telling us she wouldnt go in her chair as high chairs are for babies and she thought she was a bit more grown up as she fed herself at nursery.

Alan (my husband) called me at work to tell me he and heather had had an argument- she was just about 14 months. Alan was telling her to come to the car and she started signing for her bike. We said no and she she stomped and said no no no signing 'bike' all the time lol!

I taught her the sign for 'help' quite early on. When she was only saying a few words I heard this little upset "help" shout from her room and went in to find her with both legs over the edge of the cotrail and her hands parallel dangling there! Terrifying, but I am so glad I taught her that sign so she could use it appropriately at that moment.

(Lorraine, Heather's mum)


A great moment happened on Monday when returning from a storytime session with a new book ‘curly’s friends’ . Caitlin pointed at the picture on the front (curly is a pig) and said pig whilst signing pig very clearly! First time she has been known to say or sign the word and she did it at the same on Monday (just short of 16 months old) – not life changing event but great step forward and significant for me and Caitlin!

(Sarah, Caitlin's mum)


When Danny was about 11mths we were at the table eating Sunday lunch. There was only salt and pepper on the table but Dan signed Ketchup. He hadn't done it before then but had obviously seen all of his brothers use it and feed him it in large amounts through the week! We fell about laughing.
 
When he was approx 13mths and Dad was looking after him, he had been signing to Steve "video" all the time and pointing at TV. Steve didn,t know what he meant, but Dan wanted his video of Thomas the tank rewinding.

Signing comes in useful in McDonalds with my 5 & 9 year old. They always start fighting when I am queing over whose sitting next to me, whos getting napkins, sauce etc. I just catch their eye and sign stop it sit down now your being naughty, etc. IT WORKS.

My youngest Danny has just turned six and now in year 1. He finished reception in July knowing all of his high frequency words, spelling ones such as cat, dog  pig, when etc, etc and reading very well. Now he has moved up his spellings are really hard. Last night he wrote them out  a few times but kept forgetting how they read. Tonight we sat down again and he wrote them out again a few times. I suggested he tried to spell them after looking at them to see what he knew.
He was very frustrated and couldn't do it so I made him fingerspell them whilst looking at the words. Then I did it again with him. Then I covered them up and asked him if he could remember how to fingerspell the new words. He only got all of them right in the first go apart from one letter in the word black. I was totally blown away!  I am over the moon and he is so happy and pleased with himself.

(Dawn, Danny's mum)


I was caught up in a huge queue in the Tesco petrol station.  Hannah was left in her car seat and I could see her from where I was queuing.  I saw that she climbed into the drivers seat and started fiddling with the controls and all kinds of things.  Had I left the queue I might have had to join it again at the back and I was in a hurry - but I didn't want her to loosen the handbreak or pull anything off!  Thankfully I managed to catch her eye and signed frantically "Behave yourself, don't touch!!  Go and sit down and put your setbelt on!"  which she duly did, much to the amazement of the other people in the queue...:-)

(Katja, Hannah's mum)


I had been breastfeeding Cara but was in the process of weaning her, so had introduced a bottle/cup. When I was putting her to bed I was breast feeding as normal but had brought some milk in her cup to give her after as I knew she would need more.  She was getting quite upset as I was feeding her. I signed 'milk' and she signed 'no milk'! I lifted her cup and she signed 'milk' back and drunk most of it. I repeated this several times with the same result! I was delighted about this not only because she used the signs, but it shows how intelligent a child of nearly 9 months is.
When Cara started to speak she called a plane a 'peen'. One night she kept saying 'peen outside' and I was asking 'what's outside?', as I couldn't understand her. She started getting frustrated, then thought about it, and said 'peen outside' again, while signing 'plane'. I got it then and we were both happy!!

Cara's granny looks after her and her baby cousin who signs.  She signs to him all the time and actually tells her granny signs when she forgets them!!

Before Cara could speak (when she was about 10 months) I was reading a book to her. It was about an giant and I was happily reading exactly what was on the page. However, every time I turned the page Cara did the sign for 'hat'. I was confused until I noticed that ther was a little tiny mouse - yes, with a hat on!- on every page. Cara was not really interested in the main story, but where the mouse was going to pop up next. It really gave me an insight into her mind! 

When Cara was 3 she got locked in her car seat in the car with the keys in the ignition and radio on (faulty central locking!). This was very frightening - the choices were to break the window or go to pick up spares key (taking an hour). We opted for the latter and I had the task of keeping her calm and occupied for an hour. THANK GOODNESS FOR SIGNING!!!! I couldn't hear her so we communicated via sign, with her making up signs and miming/acting when she didn't know. After an hour we got the keys and the door opened. PHEW!!!

(Deirdre, Cara's mum)

When I went on the Sign2Music teacher training course, Toby my 2 year old was home with Lee (his Dad, my husband!). On my return Lee said to ask Toby where I have been. So I asked him and he said and signed "Mummy on a horse!!" ... Lee had told him I was on a "course" which he translated as "horse"... Very cute and it is now a family joke when either of us go to work, Toby laughs and says and sign "you going on a horse!!