Is it too late to teach my son to sign?

[Psychomom]

He will be 15 months old next week. I wish I had started before! He does not say any words and is incredibly frustrated because he can't tell me what he wants/needs. This results in him SCREAMING at me for most of the day, until I guess what it is that he wants correctly. My friend's 16 month old doesn't talk, either, but she signs for whatever she wants. Is it too late for us?

[wbkt8]

i started signing with dd at about 12-15 months and she picked up things pretty quickly. i say go for it...what'll it hurt?

[MamaZ]

I don't think it's ever too late I want my DD to learn to sign as well as my DS. We live in a large deaf community and the deaf children are mainstreamed into the regular classes here. It's so wonderful to see a deaf and hard of hearing person light up when they see you sign Go right ahead and start teaching your DS

[raceNzanesmom]

Go for it!! My daycare boy is 15 mo and just starting to pick up a few signs.

[i0lanthe]

Never too late. My DS learned a ton of signs, starting mainly when he was 2yo (couldn't talk and was frustrated.) He loves Signing Time - we have the DVDs but some libraries have them and some PBS stations broadcast it: http://signingtime.com/pressroom/stationcarriage.html
or you can learn signs and teach them yourself (tried that first but he was not as enthusiastic about that he didn't get the point of it at first beyond "more" and "all done" a.k.a. "get me out of the darn high chair")

[yellowcampcat]

It's not too late! I started teaching my dd when she was 9 mos or so, but she didn't sign back or even act like she understood what I was doing until 13 mos or so. It has really helped w/her frustration in communicating. She says alot of words now, but still uses signs for some things or uses both!

[teachermama]

Never too late to learn!! My little guy is 14 mos. and I started signing with him when he was about four months old. He had the basics (please, thank you, more) down before a year, but we are still teaching him new signs all the time because he is like your little guy and gets VERY frustrated when he can't make us understand things. Because of the signing though, the cool thing is that once I figure it out (and sometimes even if I don't) I can still have him ask "politely" and that usually stops the tantrum.
Good luck and prepare to be amazed at how quickly he'll catch on.

[Oregonwinediva]

My son was about 18mos when we started signing- he had a few words, but then after his last surgery he stopped talking all together - so we started signing. He is 2 now, and has several signs (limited only by my lack of knowledge it seems). I believe it's never too late to start - I'm 28 and just learning sign!
Tara

[mommy2zander]

We really started to teach our son to sign around this age when I went to visit my old college roommate & she was signing with her child care children! It has come in very helpful because he still doesn't talk a lot... Have fun with sign!!

[Kindermama]

not too late at all! We started around 8 months but didn't see true use of the signs until recently (she's 14 mos old). She does more, please (while saying it too!), milk, up (while saying it).