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Kids gobble cookies, blow bubbles, open and close a box of dress-up items, even sit on the potty to illustrate some of the 31 hand gestures taught throughout this excellent sign language video. Much like a mini video "dictionary," teaching focuses on word recognition alone--not the alphabet nor on full sentence structure--and covers a smart variety of simple verbs and nouns (based on American Sign Language and Signing Exact English). The format is simplistic but highly effective, and keeps the action moving. After the word appears on-screen, an adult carefully signs and pronounces it twice. Then, scenes flip open like book pages or spin like revolving doors to reveal several real-life examples; for instance, "grandfather" fishes with his grandson, eats cereal, and reads a book. More hand gesture repetition, performed by a culturally diverse group of grownups and kids, offers lots of practice time. Probably best used in the home or in a hearing classroom, this visually and audibly appealing 40-minute show comes from the folks who created Parent's Choice award-winning Baby's First Impressions series. --Liane Thomas
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By SteveSJ76 (Washington, USA)
We started watching Talking Hands when our son was an infant. We are not an ASL household but we wanted him to learn to communicate earlier than he could learn to talk. The show has always been on-demand from our cable service (in short segments). Some reviewers here have commented that the show lacks excitement and wow factor. This is true and is exactly the reason that we have continually watched it over and over again. We deliberately avoided loud and obnoxious kids shows in favor of calmer educational and musical shows. As a result, our son has always loved Talking Hands. Don't get me wrong, he is a very energetic boy - loves climbing and running - but he still takes mellow breaks to sit and study (not just watch, you can see in his eyes that he is studying) each move and word of the Talking Hands video. He even hums the theme song when it starts and stops.
Here is an example of how he has used what he learned: Our local grocery stores gives out free cookies to kids, and before our son could talk we'd ask him if he wanted to go to the store and get a cookie. He quickly learned to do the sign for cookie to signal that he wanted to go. Now he is two and is saying the words that he learned from watching Talking Hands so much. He can speak and sign most of the words on the show (he doesn't seem to get the meaning of words like "play"). Both his signs and words are imperfect, but since baby and parent alike have learned together, we understand each other very well as a result.
My (rather opinionated) advice would be to start your children early on this video and don't expose (assault) them with more exciting (ADHD inducing) alternatives. ;-) Of course every child is different, so your mileage may vary. Also you must learn the signs along with your child and use them constantly.
By BossK (Boston, MA)
Our twin girls started watching this DVD around 15 months old, and they quickly picked up on most of the signs after seeing it only a few times. Once they learned the sign for "more", they would ask to watch it "more" over and over again. :-)
Up until that point, our girls were a little late in their verbal development, but after seeing this video it vastly improved their vocabulary, both signing and verbal.
I've seen clips of a few other sign language videos for kids (some on the web, some from Comcast On-Demand), and in my un-scientific opinion I think Talking Hands is the least likely to induce ADHD. Other videos (like Baby Signing Time and Baby Einstein) have a lot of distracting animations and/or rapid transitions from scene to scene, whereas Talking Hands has an adult or child repeating each sign very slowly and deliberately multiple times, then showing actual real-world examples of each sign.
I highly recommend Talking Hands!
By Fulltime Nana (West)
Having owned and used the Baby Einstein's DVD "First Signs" for my infant granddaughter, I was pleased to find this DVD using the ASL sign language.
She is now a toddler, and ready to learn more signs. Already she knows quite a few signs at the tender age of 16 months. This DVD has a much clearer presentation of each sign than the Baby Einstein's version. Not only does it include basic words, but it also includes the alphabet and counting. A minor complaint is that I wished they did not use all CAPS in their words because it would aid the child in also learning to read each word as they "sign" it. Another plus is that the DVD is divided into chapters making it easier to present just one segment at a time. At the end of the DVD, it also presents a quiz testing the viewer's knowledge of the signs. The producers also included some "special needs" kids in their video which I thought was a nice touch.
By D. Stephens (United States)
I have this and the Signing Time series 1. I prefer this as there is no fluff, such as singing. The words are repeated several times and the signs are at the same time. Different people show the signs and it's just very straight forward.
My only complaint is were are the rest of the DVD's? Once these words are learned, one must turn elsewhere to continue learning more words. I'm almost tempted to make my own DVD's to fill the need.
By Andrea Cy Stamatis (Georgetown,KY)
I got this video a couple of years ago and my son with global developmental delay and major speech problems. He had complete access to it. He liked it and learned all the words. We misplaced it for awhile and now he has it out again and is in his room saying and practicing the words/signs by himself.
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