Quote Originally Posted by Ginger's Mom
I am pretty sure that Lobodeb did this with Hugito. I think it worked pretty well for them. I think it is a great idea.
Yes, we did try this with Hugito. He learned the sign language quite well. Too well. Once he learned a sign for something, he stopped trying to say it! To this day, I can't get him to make a sound for "more." We had to stop with all sign language completely because of that and we also found that he was making up his own signs instead of talking. His pediatrician is now concerned that he may be a little speech delayed. Hugito is supposedly the exception, though. We have a friend who has 2 nieces, one of which is deaf therefore they are both fluent in sign language. Both of their babies learned sign natrually and didn't have any adverse affects. They also learned it in both English and Spanish!

I think it depends on the baby. Hugito can name sounds of 15+ animals, but I can't get him to say please. He says "zzz."