baby signing

[Don & Theresa Grushkin]

On a tangential aspect of the topic of baby signing, my 11-month old
(Hearing, I'm Deaf, wife is Hearing) has acquired several signs in ASL
"MILK, DADDY, WANT/GIVE-ME, MOMMY, "YAY! (handwave in air)".  All are fairly
recognizable as  signs, when accommodations are made for the infant
limitations in handshape.  However, she has recently begun a sigm (it is a
sign, because it is regular, repeated, and only used in a specific context)
that looks somewhat like the ASL WHY [5 handshape at temple, palm down,
fingers repeatedly bend to palm] (but she has not been exposed much to this
sign, for obvious reasons of her age).  She signs this when looking at or
manipulating paper, books, magazines, newspaper, etc.  (she has been exposed
to the signs BOOK, PAPER [as in DON'T EAT PAPER!], and READ, but those of
you who know ASL know none of these signs are anywhere close to the sign she
is using.

This leads to my questions:

1.  Can any of you who know ASL think of what sign she might actually be
trying to say? I suspect there isn't any, which leads to my next question...

2.  Is 11 months old too young to be developing Home Signs, especially when
she has a systematized set of input (ASL)?  It seems to me such nativization
would occur in more impoverished circumstances?

--Don Grushkin