[shorty]

restless2long,
I just read your post. I wanted to ask what sign language they were wanting your son to learn. Why I ask is I have a son who is deaf since the age of two and he is 16 now. There are many different sign systems out there. We started out with Signing Exact English and used some Pigeon sign also. I would encourage voicing with sign also. We used total communication with our son...but our son signed some but chose not to when he got to Kindergarten. He is oral and does very well with his speech. The American Sign Language (ASL) is what our son is learing now for college pre-requist for foreign language. We were wanting to wait for ASL until our son got english basis down, because ASL is French word order. If you know what sign system i would be glad to post information to where to get a book. Also there are web sites on the internet to find videos to learn to sign. You could check with your library too. Yes it does take time to figure out the handshapes. I took 72 hours of sign with a community college and it helped learning with other people..then going back to the book made more sense.I think we have about seven different sign dictionaries now. Hope this information helps! Shorty