Last updated 2026-07-11
Start with signs for the things your child wants most: "more," "eat," "drink," "help," "all done," "up," and one or two favorites like "ball" or "book." Those seven to nine signs cover most of what a toddler needs to say in a given day, they cut down on frustration fast, and they don't slow speech down. Most families see a first sign within two to four weeks of modeling it consistently.
The question almost every parent asks first is whether learning to sign will make their child stop trying to talk. It won't. A 2006 review published in the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research found that augmentative and alternative communication, including manual sign, does not suppress speech and often supports it [1]. ASHA says the same thing plainly: AAC doesn't replace speech, it's meant to sit alongside spoken language work [2].
There's a mechanical reason signs work so well at this age. Talking requires fast, precise coordination of lips, tongue, jaw, and breath. Signing just needs hands and arms, and most toddlers already control those fairly well. Once a child can express a need and get a response, the loop closes, and that loop is what pulls language forward. There's a simpler benefit too: a child who can't tell you they're hungry or tired will often fall apart, and a sign gives them a way through that while the words are still catching up. It costs nothing, needs no equipment, and works in the car, at the park, or at 2 a.m.
Which signs to teach first
Both baby sign research and AAC practice point the same direction: start with high-motivation, high-frequency words, the ones a child would use constantly if they could. Not "elephant." Not "please," which is polite but rarely urgent. You want the words that match what your child actually wants several times a day.
Speech-language pathologists tend to recommend the same starting cluster for requests and regulation:
| Sign | Why it makes the short list |
|---|---|
| More | Used across every context: food, play, books, swinging |
| Eat / Hungry | High urgency, used multiple times daily |
| Drink | Same logic as eat; distinct enough to be useful |
| Help | Reduces frustration across all situations |
| All done / Finished | Gives the child a way to exit, which matters for cooperation |
| Up | Physical need, frequently urgent |
| No | Children this age need a functional way to refuse |
After those, add one or two signs tied to whatever your child is obsessed with. A dog-lover gets "dog." A bubble fanatic gets "bubbles." A kid who asks for milk twenty times a day gets "milk." The word itself matters less than the motivation behind it: give a child a reason to use a sign and they'll practice it [3].
That's the whole starting list: seven to nine signs, used with real enthusiasm every day. Not twenty, and not a vocabulary deck.
Some parents wonder whether to use actual ASL signs or just invent their own. ASL wins for two practical reasons: it's documented and consistent, so any caregiver can learn the same signs from free sources like Signing Savvy, Handspeak, or ASL University, and some children, particularly those later identified with autism or apraxia, eventually meet formal sign-based systems where that ASL overlap pays off. Still, if your child comes up with their own gesture and you both understand it, use it. Communication is the point, not the dialect.
What order to introduce them in
Pick one sign and stick with it for a full week before adding the next. Parents don't love hearing this, but it matters: kids learn signs through repeated exposure across different situations, not one teaching moment. A week of "more" modeled at snack time, the park, bath time, and books will beat a weekend where you throw ten signs at your child all at once.
A reasonable pace for many toddlers looks like this: weeks 1-2 for "more" (versatile, quick wins), weeks 3-4 for "help" (meltdowns often drop almost immediately once it clicks), weeks 5-6 for "eat" and "drink" together (similar contexts, easy to pair), weeks 7-8 for "all done" (useful for transitions), and weeks 9-10 for "up" plus your child's first personalized favorite. After that, add new signs at whatever pace your child sets, roughly one or two a week.
There's one exception to going slow: if your child is in constant, acute frustration, introduce "help," "more," and "all done" together in the first couple of weeks, since those three cover most common toddler communication breakdowns. Watch your child and adjust from there.
How to actually teach a sign at home
You don't need flashcards or sign-language videos running in the background. The approach with research behind it is called aided input, or modeling: you make the sign every time you say the word, whether your child signs back or not [4].
Say the word and sign it at the same time, every time: "Do you want MORE?" while making the sign, without splitting the two apart. Make the sign where your child can see it easily; you don't need to be on the floor all day, but clear sightlines help early on. Then wait. After modeling a sign in a motivating moment, pause five to ten seconds and hold that window open. This is called expectant waiting, and it's one of the best-supported strategies in early communication intervention [5]. If your child makes any attempt at all, even a rough gesture in the right direction, treat it as real communication: respond right away, warmly, and give them what they asked for.
Hand-over-hand prompting, physically shaping your child's hands into the sign, should be used carefully and only if your child is comfortable with it. Some children, especially autistic children, find unexpected touch unpleasant, and modeling alone is usually enough without that risk. Consistency matters more than precision here: a slightly imperfect "more" sign that every adult in the house uses beats a textbook-perfect ASL sign that only one parent bothers with.
How long it takes
Honestly, it varies a lot, and there isn't much controlled data specifically on late talkers as a group. In typically developing infants introduced to baby sign, the first intentional sign usually shows up after four to eight weeks of steady modeling, often around 8-10 months if started early [6]. Older late talkers, from 18 months to 3 years, often move faster once motivation is high, since they have more cognitive development behind them.
The biggest factor isn't the child's ability, it's how consistently the adults model signs in real moments. A child who sees "more" signed twenty times a day at snack and during play will usually pick it up faster than one who saw it demonstrated once as a lesson at the table. Some kids attempt a sign within days; others take three or four weeks. If you've been consistent for six weeks with no response at all, bring it up with a speech-language pathologist. It could point to motor planning challenges (see apraxia of speech) or something else worth assessing. For families navigating autism, timelines often run longer, and a specialist can help; autism spectrum speech therapy often folds sign in alongside other AAC tools.
Do signs replace talking, or lead to it?
This is the question parents ask most, and the research answer holds steady: signs support spoken language, they don't replace it. A frequently cited 2006 study by Millar, Light, and Schlosser reviewed AAC intervention research for people with developmental disabilities and found that AAC doesn't inhibit speech and often facilitates it [1]. A 2010 study by Romski et al. in the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology found that AAC-augmented interventions produced significantly more spoken vocabulary growth than speech-only interventions in toddlers with developmental delays [7].
The logic tracks: signing alongside speech gives a child two channels of input for one word, and the sign lingers visually for a second or two where spoken sound is gone the instant it's said. For a child whose auditory processing is still developing, that visual anchor seems to help them connect sound to meaning.
None of this makes signs magic, and it doesn't mean every late talker should skip speech therapy in favor of signing. Signs are one tool. Most late talkers will talk eventually, sign or no sign, but signing reduces frustration in the meantime and seems to speed up the arrival of words rather than delay them. If your child also has motor speech concerns like childhood apraxia, signs may end up playing a longer-term role. You can read more about childhood apraxia of speech and how it factors into AAC planning.
This is general information, not a stand-in for an evaluation by a licensed speech-language pathologist.
Are there children for whom signs might not be the best starting AAC?
Yes. Signs take real fine motor control and motor planning in the hands. Children with significant motor impairments, and some children with childhood apraxia of speech whose motor planning difficulties extend beyond speech into the hands, can find signs genuinely hard to produce.
For those children, picture-based AAC, whether a communication board or a speech-generating device, may work better as a first tool. AAC devices range from low-tech boards to high-tech systems, and a speech-language pathologist can help match the tool to the child.
Signs also depend on a communication partner who recognizes them. That's no problem at home with familiar caregivers, but at a daycare or playground full of adults who don't know the sign, it simply won't land.
None of this means avoiding signs. It means treating them as one possible starting point rather than the only one, and bringing in a speech-language pathologist when a child's profile is more complex. Early intervention services, free in the US for children under 3 under IDEA Part C, include a speech-language evaluation and can help guide this kind of decision [9].
What does the research say about the best signs to teach first?
No large randomized trial ranks "more" above "help" as a first sign. What the research does support is a principle: start with words that are motivating and useful to that particular child, not the ones adults might pick because they seem logical or educational.
This comes out of core vocabulary research in AAC. Beukelman and Mirenda found that a small set of high-frequency words, often called "core vocabulary," accounts for roughly 80% of the words children actually use in conversation [10]. These words are mostly functional: "want," "more," "go," "help," "stop," "that," "like." Not nouns. The glue words of interaction.
Fringe vocabulary, specific nouns like "dog," "ball," or "milk," is personally motivating but comes up less often across different contexts. Adding one or two fringe words early, the personal favorites, is backed by motivation research rather than core vocabulary research: a child with a strong reason to communicate will simply practice more.
The common recommendation, two or three high-frequency core signs plus one or two high-motivation personal signs, shows up across most clinical guidance for early sign teaching, even though no single study has tested this exact mix against alternatives. So the list isn't arbitrary. It reflects where the evidence points, with the honest caveat that more research would sharpen the picture.
How many signs should a late talker know before they start talking?
There's no magic number, and a large sign vocabulary was never the goal. Signs are a bridge, and the bridge can be short.
Many SLPs notice clinically that once children reach roughly 10 to 15 functional signs, spoken words often start appearing, though this isn't a controlled-study finding and individual variation is large. What seems to matter more than the count is whether the child uses signs on purpose and whether the people around them respond consistently.
Once spoken words start showing up, signs tend to fade on their own. The child figures out speech is faster and more powerful and starts preferring it. There's no need to withdraw signs on purpose. Some children keep a few alongside speech for months or years, and that's fine too.
If a child reaches 20 or more signs with no spoken words emerging, that's a signal to revisit the assessment rather than just teach more signs. There may be motor, sensory, or language processing factors underneath that nobody has fully identified yet, and a speech therapy speech therapist consultation makes sense at that point if one hasn't happened already.
Parents wanting guided support between therapy sessions sometimes use tools like Little Words, which can help with modeling strategies consistently, day to day.
Should you combine signs with pictures or a communication board?
For many late talkers, yes, and AAC-informed SLPs increasingly recommend it. The idea is multimodal input: a child who hears "more," sees the sign for "more," and sees a picture symbol for "more" gets three representations of the same concept at once. There's no documented downside to combining these, and some evidence that multimodal AAC works better than single-mode approaches for children with more complex communication needs [11].
A simple way to start: put small pictures of "more," "eat," "drink," and "help" on a card on the refrigerator, make the matching sign when you point to the picture, and say the word out loud. It costs nothing and takes ten minutes to put together.
Children with more extensive communication needs may need something more formal, like PECS, a core vocabulary board, or a speech-generating device, and that decision belongs with an SLP. For most late talkers who are otherwise healthy toddlers, the simple sign-plus-picture combo at home is a reasonable start that doesn't need a professional to run.
Little Words also has a start quiz at littlewords.ai/start that helps parents figure out which strategies fit their child's current stage, including whether signs, pictures, or something else makes the most sense right now.
You can start signing with a baby the moment you notice a lag, there's really no minimum age to worry about. The AAP puts typical milestones at about 16-17 words by 18 months and 50-plus words with two-word combinations by 24 months, but signs themselves work fine well before that. You can introduce them to any infant around 6-8 months, long before speech usually shows up, and if your late talker is already 18-36 months old, there's no reason to hold off. A lot of parents worry that signing will make a child lazy about talking. The research actually points the other way. A 2010 study by Romski and colleagues in the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology found that toddlers with developmental delays who got AAC-augmented intervention grew their spoken vocabulary more than kids who got speech-only treatment. Signs seem to support spoken words rather than compete with them. If you only teach one sign, make it "more." It works across food, play, books, and physical games, so a child who masters it gains real communicative power right away. "Help" is a strong second choice since it covers so many frustrating moments through the day, but "more" is the one to start with. Teach one sign at a time and give it a full week before adding another. Speed matters less than consistency: every caregiver in the house needs to use the sign the same way. Once your child has three or four signs working reliably, you can pick up the pace, maybe one or two new signs a week, as long as the older ones are holding steady. If weeks have gone by with nothing back from your child, check a few things first. Are you modeling the sign during moments that genuinely motivate your child, or only during practice sessions? Are you piling on pressure, which can cause some kids to shut down? Is everyone in your child's life using the same signs? If you've been consistent for six weeks and still see nothing, bring it up with a speech-language pathologist, since motor planning or sensory issues could be part of the picture. On official ASL versus homemade gestures: ASL wins on two counts. It's consistent across caregivers (anyone can look a sign up), and it lines up with formal communication systems your child might use later. That said, if your child invents their own clear gesture and it works, use it. What matters is that it communicates. Just write down what it means so everyone caring for your child understands it too. Always speak while you sign. Doing one without the other cuts the benefit. This combined approach, sometimes called simultaneous communication or "sim-com," gives your child both an auditory and a visual version of the word at once. Signing should never replace saying the word out loud. For autistic children who are nonverbal or minimally verbal, signs can help, but this group often does better with a broader AAC approach than signs alone. Picture systems and speech-generating devices have stronger evidence behind them here, and signs work best as one piece of a larger system. An AAC-trained SLP should be involved in planning for these kids; ASHA's guidance on AAC for autism is a good place to start. Daycare or preschool not knowing your child's signs is a common snag, but it's an easy fix. Put together a one-page sheet with photos or drawings of the specific signs your child uses, label them, and send it to the classroom. Teachers tend to pick up a handful of functional signs fast once they see how much calmer things get. You're not asking anyone to learn ASL, just the five to eight signs your particular child relies on. Signing and picture boards aren't the same tool. Signs come from the child's own body and need a partner who already knows what they mean, while picture boards are physical objects anyone literate can read by having the child point. Signs need no materials and are always available; boards can get lost but are more universally understood. Plenty of children end up using both. As for whether your child needs signs, a device, or formal therapy: signs are a solid starting point at home for most late talkers. A speech-generating device becomes worth exploring if a child needs more communicative reach than signs give them, particularly if they're not moving toward speech by age 3. Formal speech therapy fits almost any late talker no matter what AAC tools are already in play, and none of these options rule out the others. There's also decent evidence that signing speeds up real word development, though it's stronger for some groups than others. The Romski 2010 study found significantly more spoken word growth in the AAC-augmented group than in speech-only intervention among toddlers with developmental delays. For typically developing babies, Goodwyn, Acredolo, and Brown (2000) found that infants taught symbolic gestures had faster vocabulary growth at 19-24 months than babies who weren't taught them. If you want to learn the signs yourself for free, a few resources cover this well. ASL University (Lifeprint.com), run by Dr. Bill Vicars at Sacramento State, is one of the most thorough free ASL resources online, with a short video for every sign; find the words on your list and bookmark those pages [12]. Signing Savvy (signingsavvy.com) is a searchable video dictionary with slow-motion playback, free with ads, with a small subscription for offline features. Handspeak (handspeak.com) is another ASL video dictionary organized by category, handy for finding baby-relevant signs quickly. And ASHA publishes accessible parent guidance on signing with young children at asha.org [2]. One caution: paid programs like Signing Time and Baby Signing Time are genuinely good products, but you don't need to buy anything to teach the core signs mentioned here. The free resources above cover all of it.Sources
- Millar, Light, & Schlosser (2006), Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 'The Impact of AAC on the Speech Production of Individuals with Developmental Disabilities': Review of studies concluded AAC does not inhibit speech production and frequently facilitated it
- American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), AAC overview: ASHA states AAC does not replace speech and should be offered alongside spoken language intervention
- Goodwyn, Acredolo, & Brown (2000), Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 'Impact of Symbolic Gesturing on Early Language Development': Child motivation for a specific sign drives practice frequency and acquisition speed
- Drager et al. (2006), American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, aided language modeling with AAC: Aided input / modeling (signing while speaking) is the evidence-supported technique for AAC introduction
- American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), naturalistic early language intervention strategies: Expectant waiting (pausing to hold a communication opportunity open) is a supported prompting strategy in early communication intervention
- Goodwyn & Acredolo (1998), Child Development, 'Encouraging Symbolic Gestures': Typically developing infants introduced to baby sign generally show first intentional sign use after 4-8 weeks of modeling
- Romski et al. (2010), American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 'Randomized Comparison of Augmented and Nonaugmented Language Interventions for Toddlers with Developmental Delays': AAC-augmented communication produced significantly more spoken vocabulary growth than speech-only interventions for toddlers with developmental delays
- US Department of Education, IDEA Part C (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), early intervention for children under 3: Under IDEA Part C, free early intervention services including speech-language evaluation are available for children under age 3 in the US
- Beukelman & Mirenda (2013), Augmentative and Alternative Communication: Supporting Children and Adults with Complex Communication Needs, 4th ed.: A small set of high-frequency core vocabulary words accounts for roughly 80% of the words children actually use in conversation
- Schlosser & Wendt (2008), American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 'Effects of AAC Intervention on Speech Production in Children with Autism': Multimodal AAC (signs plus pictures plus speech) does not reduce and may improve speech outcomes compared to single-mode approaches
- ASL University / Lifeprint.com, Dr. Bill Vicars, Sacramento State University: Free ASL video dictionary covering all common baby-relevant signs including more, eat, drink, help, all done
- American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), Developmental Milestones, speech and language: AAP places expected milestones at approximately 16-17 words by 18 months and 50 words with two-word combinations by 24 months