Dawna- I've read that the research says that teaching sign language does not delay their verbalness. But in my case as yours Irrissa does not speak. She signs a lot as you know and our Ped. wasn't concerned but she did make a quip that maybe we should lay off the signing some.

What I have concluded is that without the sign lang. the need/drive to learn to speak is very great because they have no other means of communication. But when you add a sign language to it, and they realize that they can communicate using their hands that the drive to speak isn't as strong because they already are communicating with you just through a different means.

When my brother was little all he had to do was point or grunt and we would get him whatever he wanted. Finally his Ped. told us that we were anticpating his every need and so he was not needing to be verbal to get his needs answered. So we started waiting until he tried to say the word, and back off some on figuring out what he needed before he tried to tells us verbally and that seemed to work. My fear is that with the sign language the same thing is happening with Irrissa. That I know what she wants so I just go get it before she even has to try and tell me verbally what she wants. It may be time to try and get them to verbalize more than just sign? I don't know?

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