Hot on HuffPost Parents:
Rev. Susan Baller-Shepard: Wild And Precious Lives: Godspeed…
27 Fantastic Books For Kids Of All Ages
Baby Sign Language Can Help Your Child Communicate
Filed under: Development/Milestones: Babies, Research Reveals: Babies, Activities: Family Time, Development Health
A baby looks on during a sign language lesson. Credit: Janek Skarzynski, AFP / Getty Images
The proponents of baby signing say communication is just what their system allows. In baby signing, infants are introduced to nonverbal gestures that substitute for words. Each time adults say a particular word, they make the accompanying gesture. Experts say children as young as 7 months can learn to sign.
Parents sometimes worry that being able to communicate through signing will deter their children from speaking, but experts say that isn't the case.
"When a baby learns to crawl it doesn't mean it's less motivated to walk," says Linda Acredolo, cofounder of the Baby Signs program and psychology professor emeritus at the University of California, Davis. "The same is true for signing."
Acredolo was involved in a five-year study funded by the National Institutes for Health that showed signing can facilitate speech in babies.
"It definitely has a positive effect on verbal development, and research shows that it helps intellectual development as well," she says. "For a while, they'll combine the word and the sign, and that's helpful because sometimes the early word doesn't sound like anything that you know."
Babies can reap emotional rewards from signing, as well. Being able to sign means they can tell caregivers and parents when they're cold, hungry or tired, making them less likely to throw tantrums because they are misunderstood.
"It gives babies the power to communicate in very simple terms before they have the words, so it can really head off frustration," says Tova Klein, director of the Barnard Center for Toddler Development.
A child's ability to make himself understood is particularly useful in a child care setting.
"When they can't say words they start scratching and hitting," Acredolo says. "Signing babies don't have to do that."
Signing also gives siblings a way to communicate with the youngest member of the family. But Klein warns against taking a child to signing classes.
"If it's done in context, it's lovely," she says. "If it becomes something else that's forced and being taught in some rigid way, it's going against what it's intended for."
But when taught organically, signing can be the most natural thing in the world, Acredolo says.
"We all teach our babies to wave bye-bye and nod for yes and shake their heads for no, and those are all signs," she says. "If they can learn three then why not more?"
Related: Researchers Blast Another Link Between Autism and Vaccines
Your<span>Voice</span>
Ask Us Anything About Parenting
Recently Asked
- PLAINTIFF’S MOTION FOR JUDGMENT ON THE PLEADINGS AS TO THE ANSWER BY DEFENDANTS ______________________________. Plaintiff, ________________________ h...
- Cant upload foia for federal election commission primary election results or general for derian douglas hickman or the e-mail
- Copyright court case litigation? the words spoken by attorney at trial ? in defense of a product or person(or as plaintiff or defendant))
TheTalkies:RelatedVideos
-
Sign Language for Babies
Sign language can be a great communication tool for parents and their babies. In this episode of The Lab, DadLabs asks a few teachers if dads and moms should be teaching a baby sign language. Will sign language delay speech or can it enhance language development? If you've got thoughts or stories about sign language for kids, share them with us. Do your children use signs? Do your infants attend a day care that teaches sign language?
-
Pregnancy and Birth: Baby Sign Language
Baby sign language helps parents and baby to communicate before the baby can talk and to encourage their speech and language development.
-
Baby Sign Language Basics
Better.TV discusses the basics of baby sign language and how you can communicate with your baby.
-
How to Speak Sign Language with Your Baby
Sign Language is a groundbreaking way to communicate with young children that is impressing parents everywhere. By introducing basic elements of sign language at an early age, you can not only accelerate the speech development skills of your infant, but keep in closer touch with their needs.
SitesWeLove
- Site Map
- |
- Staff
- |
- Terms of Service
- |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Trademarks
- |
- Advertise With Us
- |
- About Our Ads
- |
- AOL Downloads
- |
- Contact Us
- |
© Copyright 2012 AOL Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Aol Family
ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
6-22-2010 @ 12:12PM
CLM said...I have to disagree with Klein re: taking children to signing classes. Child-centered signing classes are not at all rigid, but use songs and other child-appropriate methods to help parents and children learn new signs. As a mother of twins, I found going to classes with them very helpful, and it gave us an impetus to use sign consistently. We all had great fun, it definitely lowered the boys' frustration levels, and to this day they unconsciously still use some signs when they say the word, so there is a definite language reinforcement element.
Reply
6-22-2010 @ 12:59PM
LS said...I signed with my little boy starting around 4 months of age. He didn't sign back to me until he was about 7 months. It wasn't anything that was forced - it was fun for me to do, and was very, very cool when he started signing back. He started talking at about 9 months, and now has a large vocabulary (he's 6).
Many signing advocates say that you should allow your baby to create the signs, or that you should create signs for your child. That's a fine idea, but I also think it's a great idea to stick as closely to ASL as possible. This way, if you choose, you can continue on with it, and you and your child will have a second language. That's what I did. We didn't keep up on it, so we've forgotten a lot, but for a while there, we could hold a conversation completely in sign language. Talk about cool!!
I highly recommend it, as long as it doesn't become a competition. Keep it simple and natural, almost a game, and you'll be surprised at what you can do.
Reply
6-22-2010 @ 1:43PM
SKL said...I think this is cool, but I never had the time to study sign myself. I actually decided to try it at some point - but the first sign I looked up was "more" and there were two different signs for it, depending on where I looked. Well! Bad enough I have to learn a new language, but then to not even know if I'm speaking it right - it would be like trying to teach my kid Chinese with nobody to tell me how it's actually pronounced. So I gave up. The kids were starting to talk anyway pretty soon after I took custody. I was a little bored by how slowly they picked up words, but ultimately I don't think signing would have made a difference.
I don't think sign will delay speech, as long as the person teaching it knows what he/she is doing. Too much focus on it can take away from other things - but that's true of any type of "lesson."
I will note, however, that some kids start talking before 7 months old anyway, so I am not sure signing actually makes typical kids talk faster. But, it depends on the child. For kids who have specific issues that delay speech, sign can resolve a lot of frustration, particularly in the toddler years. So it's a good tool to know about, but not necessarily helpful for every kid.
Reply
6-22-2010 @ 4:22PM
Beth SG said...My daughter's speech has always been a bit on the late side of normal (started with "cooing" and such - even adjusted for her month of prematurity) so I was even more motivated to sign with her.
It was never done as a "lesson" just something that we did, along with talking to her, starting with a few basic signs for the most important things/concepts: more, all done, milk (nursing), etc.
She first signed "more" at about 10 months, picked up a couple more over the next couple of months and then just exploded with it after a year.
As she's learned more signs, and more things have come up, we've looked up the signs for things that we want to teach her. We've also made some up "on the fly" and she's made up several of her own.
At 20 months, she has a handful of spoken words (plus a lot of animal sounds - not much help with communication!) but probably 60 - 70 signs.
Even if it has slowed her speech (and I don't think it has - I think that's just her), it's totally worth it, because with speech and signs she communicates better than many early talkers (and certainly did a few months ago!)
She'll talk as well as any of us soon enough, and in the meantime, she's communicating, and that's what's important.
We've also found that we have very little tantruming and frustration (from her or us ;-) ) because she can tell us what she wants, needs and thinks.
It's also given us an amazing window into her little mind, and made us very aware of how much is actually going on in there, even at this early age.
Reply
6-24-2010 @ 12:50AM
Sharin - CCC-SLP said...I've been teaching American Sign Language for over 30 years - way before it became "fashionable". I started teaching my hearing daughter to sign when she was about 5 months old (she's now 22 years old) to help with language acquisition. Although the manual fine motor skills are not fully developed at that age for signing, nor are the oral motor articulators for speaking, I believe a combination of the two helps in expressive communication skills.
As a speech pathologist and former early childhood educators, I definitely promote the use of ASL for babies and children. Rather than the thought that using sign language at an early age may delay oral speech, just the opposite happens. The natural desire to speak will unfold with less frustrations if dual modalities of communication are used.
Sign-cerely!
Reply