Baby Einstein Signing.. Good or Bad??

The people who are saying this statement are ignorant. A child who is slow in developing language is most likely a child with a speech delay, autism, PDD-NOS or some other genetic issue that affects speech.
I have known many who have taught their children sign and their children are all doing fantastic and actually acquired verbal language well before their peers. My two year old son, who has PDD-NOS, is non-verbal, but because we taught him sign he has a way to communicate with us.

you can find someone online to say that ANYthing is bad. really.

i see no issue. don't LET her use that exclusively instead of speaking- as long as she is progressing verbally she's fine.

the only way i can see it would be bad is if the parent only communicated with signs and didn't bother to teach their child how to speak...??

Ummm... that's the first time I have EVER heard of baby sign being bad...

My DD's speech therapist recommended that we START teaching her sign! She said that it actually helps their speech develop, because they are able to communicate before they can enunciate, so it cuts out quite a bit of frustration when learning to talk. At 2, my DD is mildly speech delayed, and her biggest cause of meltdowns is when she wants one thing, but I interpret her 'word' as another thing... When I can't understand her, she gets frustrated and has a meltdown... Since starting sign, she will do the sign in addition to the 'word', and I am able to help her with the correct verbalization. We have already noticed a HUGE difference, and in one month she has made up 4 months of delay! :)

Besides that... Retardation is a mental or a physical disability... NOT something that is 'taught'... What an ignorant woman!

Signing is GREAT for babies and toddlers! It enhances brain development and does nothing but good things for your baby. The person who told you this is the one with the problem brain. Don't listen to that garbage.

I think the real 'retard' was the lady on the today show. How could learning anything new retard your baby?

I think it depends on the child.

Each one will be different. I talked with our child a lot.. Even as an infant.

I would say each step of whatever I was doing. It felt strange to have a one sided conversation, but I could tell she was listening..

She was an early talker also.. By her 1st birthday she was speaking in sentences and able to come up with her own explanations..

At her party, my mom had made punch.. Our daughter had never had anything like it.. No sugary sweets, only fresh fruits.

When she tasted the punch, her eyes got really big and she announced . "Candy Juice!" she was so surprised..

We had never given her candy, but I guess after talking about how sweet candy is, she got the idea this punch must have been made out of candy..

She would reach up with both hands and say. "Hold you me, peas?" Her version of "Please hold me?"

Our neighbors little girl never tried to make out words, but was really fluent in baby sign language. I know it was helpful to her parents. My concern was that they never said the words.. If she signed bottle, they gave her the bottle, but did not say, "Here is your bottle!" They would say "here you go!" and sign the word bottle..

I never heard that child speak and they moved when she was just over 1 year old, But I do know their child is doing great in school, she is now going into 3rd grade this year and is in an accelerated program.

Okay, I think the videos are fine in moderation. In addition I think that baby sign is good as long as you are also having them say the words as they are learning to speak. Ex: More (sign and speak) - so by the time my son was starting to speak (18mo) he had to make the "mo" sound with the sign to get more. Do you understand what I am getting at?

Basically if your child is of talking age they should be doing both talking and signing - the signing is good communication for before they can speak and should fall to the wayside as they learn to speak. So, I found it helpful but did not use it at our only means - just a tool.

*side note my son had a speech delay could make sounds not words and single words at that due to medical issues going on with him.

My son was slightly speech delayed. Every time he learned to sign a word he learned to say the word within two weeks. It really helped his oral language development!

Everything in moderation. Baby Einstein is probably better than lots of other things that babies can watch. But too much of anything isn't good. As for the signing, I'm not a huge fan, but wouldn't venture to say it could be harmful. I think it just is what it is. If parents use it too much and lose focus on speaking words, then yes- kids will probably speak later.

If your daughter is on pace or excelling, then it was a success for you. It hasn't been for others. Sounds like you did just fine!

I think by "retard," she probably meant cause a delay. Not that I agree with it. I have met ONE person who struggled with getting their son to talk, once he learned signing. I think that was more the child, less the signing. Signing is usually a great benefit to children. I wonder if she was actually talking about watching the TV so frequently to learn this, and not the actually signing. Watching so much TV can be harmful.

We had all the Baby Einstein videos that my daughter loved. As a baby, she did do some signing. She was an early talker and early reader. When she was in kindergarten, she was identified as gifted and ended up going to Balboa Magnet Gifted Elementary School in Northridge. So in our case, it wasn't a bad thing.

Does the signing retard your child or does the baby einstein?

We have Signing Time! not Baby Einstein... but we love it!

We started having our daughter watch it when she was about 9 months old I think. She loved it & it was the only thing she would watch for a while! We collected the whole first series, plus Baby Signing Time, and now we have a lot of the 2nd series.

Her daycare/preschool teachers and other people would be surprised at her VERBAL vocabulary, as well as her signs. I think watching Signing Time helped her learn that vocabulary by showing what the words referred to and repeating the word out loud, as well as in sign.

I do not know how Baby Einstein's signing videos differ from Signing Time tho...

Signing was a sanity saver with all 3 of my kids. We taught they with books, flash cards, DVDs and with my third an iPhone app. We never let the sign replace real words, ever. We always said the word and used the sign together.
When a million things are "Ba" it's nice to know they want the ball and not their blankie.
It didn't delay their speech in any way. They all picked up language very fast.
So long as you are not substituting signing for teaching them the words for everything I believe it is a great asset to have.

What that lady said makes no sense. It's not harmful for a baby to learn a second language.

The only thing that is harmful is parents continually trying to push their kids to excel. If you don't have expectations of your daughter being a genius just because she signs and watches Baby Einstein, she will be fine.

Let her watch Baby Einstein occasionally and sign if she wants to and love her and have fun with her and talk with her and read books and she will be great.

And yes, by "retard" she meant "slows," not that it will make your baby retarded.

My grandkids watch "Signing Time" and "Baby Einstein".

I have watched them with the grandkids when I babysit. They are both really good and far and above other childrens programs on TV.

Good luck to you and yours.