Baby Sign Language
By Heather Hales, senior editor and Carrie Brink, staff writer

Baby sign language or baby signs are easy-to-do gestures that represent activities, emotions or objects. An example would be when you wave good-bye to your child. The movement of your hand represents the action of leaving. Baby signs are usually the same as ASL (American Sign Language) signs, with some adaptation to make certain signs easier for little hands.

Most children want to talk (and can cognitively understand) a lot more than they can actually verbalize to you. Language can take a long time to develop in a child, while signs are far easier to learn than the intricate manipulation of the lips, jaw, and tongue necessary for each new word.

Benefits of Signing

According to Sarah Hales, M.A. CCC-SLP/L, a speech and language pathologist; baby signs are a great way to eliminate frustration and tantrums in children.

"The primary advantage of teaching signs to young children who are not yet communicating verbally (whether it's just because of their age and stage of development, or because they have special needs) is that it can give them an effective way to communicate their wants and needs before (sometimes many months before) they are able to effectively express them verbally, which often results in minimal use of whining and/or tantrums to communicate ... and parents already know all of the positives about that."

One of the most obvious benefits of teaching your child to sign is the reduction of frustration. Signing can reduce the frustration of both parents and infants, as parents no longer have to play the stressful guessing game to figure out what their child needs.

There are many other benefits to teaching your baby to sign, according to Sign2Me.com, experts agree that signing such as a higher IQ and a larger vocabulary when they do begin to speak.

Dr. Marilyn Daniel's, author of Dancing with Words: Signing for Hearing Children's Literacy (Bergin & Garvey 2001), has found that hearing students in pre-kindergarten classes who receive instruction in both English and ASL scored significantly higher on standardized vocabulary tests than hearing students in classes with no sign instruction. Over the years, her studies have clearly demonstrated that adding visual and kinesthetic elements to verbal communication helps enhance a preschool child's vocabulary, spelling, and early reading skills.

Despite the documented advantages to teaching a child sign, some parents are still concerned that teaching children sign might delay their verbal skills. Studies conducted actually find just the opposite to be true. At 24 months, children who had been signing had a much larger verbal vocabulary than children who did not sign. (Read more about these studies at BabySign.com) The correct way to use baby sign language is to model the sign and verbally say the word. This way your child is learning that the object/emotion/action, the sign and the sound are all associated. Your child is learning the verbal cue along with the sign. When they are ready they will be able to verbally communicate what they already know.

What Do Other Mothers Think?

Many mothers have taught their babies to sign, some out of necessity and some for a better understanding of their child's needs.

Teaching her baby sign language wasn't a conscious decision for Annette Lehman of Rockledge, FL. Annette says she decided to give it a try.

"As my baby sat in the high chair and 'played' with new foods, I told her what things were and showed her the signs. When she was able, she copied me. By 15 months she was able to sign at least 10 signs. She learned to talk quickly. It was a great tool and I am planning on using it on the next one who will be here in September!"

Annette adds, "The signs that are the most helpful are those they would use everyday with the child. 'Please','more', 'thank you', 'drink', 'eat', 'sleep', 'no', 'yes' and 'I love you' as well as the names of animals and foods. These are great starts."

Suzanne Estes of Melbourne, Florida started teaching her babies when they were 7 months old.

"Once a baby shows signs of nonverbal communications then they are ready to sign. The twins started with waving bye-bye, and that's when they learned how to tell me they were hungry, thirsty, finished eating, please and thank you."

For Ardie Griffen, also of Melbourne, Florida, baby sign language was a valuable tool in communicating with her 31-month-old son who has been diagnosed with Down Syndrome.

"He uses approximately 60 signs to communicate with us!"

Carrie Brink (Satellite Beach Ward, Melbourne Florida Stake, USA) learned baby sign language to communicate with her 2-year-old son. Jarrett who was born "tongue-tied."

"After corrective surgery, his speech slowly improved. Baby sign language was crucial during that time period. We started with simple things like 'more' and 'please.' Jarrett's speech wasn't well understood and this would lead to hours of frustration and tantrums. Baby sign language was the first way our son could communicate with us. Knowing that we understood him and being able to fulfill his needs stopped the tantrums and allowed a lovely, pleasant toddler to emerge."

How Do I know If My Child is Ready?

Many parents wonder when the right time is to start signing with their child. You can start as early as birth. As you talk to your infant begin to use the signs whenever you use the words a la television shows like Blues Clues that often use the sign as they say many words. You can start with simple signs. As you lay your child down to change her diaper tell her you are going to change your diaper, and show her the sign for diaper change (patting your upper thigh). These behaviors will become so ingrained in your routine that your child will soon be able to pick up on them and before you know it, they will be signing to you.

The only problem associated with signing early on, is parental discouragement. Some parents who start signing early on are eager to engage their babies in two-way communication. When their babies don't sign back right away, then can often become discouraged and stop. Children typically do not begin to sign back until they are between 10-12 months, even then their signing is very limited. Still, some children just aren't signers. If you have consistently used signs with your child and they still aren't signing by 18 months, then perhaps your child just isn't a signer. If you start early, remember this is a process that takes time and a lot of perseverance.

How to Start

Get a baby signs book, rent or buy a signing video geared towards young children, or attend a "Baby Signs Workshop," or a similar class (some cities' Parks & Rec offices offer parent/child signing classes.)

Once you have learned some signs yourself, start using them. Model the signs for your child during regular interaction and conversations. It is also important to teach your child how to make the signs. In the beginning you will need to help with this. An example would be the following:

Its dinner time and you are explaining to your child that it is time to eat. As you say "eat," model the sign by putting your fingers to your lips, then take your child's hand (and while saying "eat") and help him to put his fingers to his mouth to sign "eat."

"If your child doesn't make the sign exactly like the book says or exactly like the video showed ... don't stress over it," Speech Pathologist Sarah Hales says. "As long as a child's sign is consistent for a given word or message, then it works just as well as the correct sign. One of the little girls on my caseload signed 'block' for the word 'more' for a long time, but those in her environment who needed to know what she was trying communicate all knew that that was her sign for 'more' and that's what counted."

"My son never did get the sign right for the word 'more,'" Lori Garcia (Shoal Creek Valley Branch, Liberty Missouri Stake, USA) said. "Instead he would make the sign that referees use for 'time-out.' We tried to teach him the sign correctly, but then figured, it didn't really matter. It was kind of funny seeing him walk around doing the 'time-out' sign anyway."

Positive reinforcement is essential to helping your child learn to sign. After you help your child to sign for something, verbally praise them such as in the following example:

"Good Job Sam, you said 'eat'. That's right, we are going to eat (signing eat as you say it). Let's sit down and have some dinner."

If the child sees you sign and is reinforced for his signing, he is more likely to continue. Remember that responding to your child's sign is the best way to reinforce their behavior. Your child wants to communicate with you, and it is so exciting for him/her to know that you understand. Make sure you always respond to a sign, even if you don't give your child what he/she asks for.

Sarah recommends teaching as many specific signs as possible (i.e."cracker" "cookie" "apple" "block" "book" "ball" "juice" "milk" ...). General signs are very useful also, such as "eat" or "drink" or "play" but the more specific a child can be, the more effective he will be able to communicate his wants and needs.

Signs like "more" and "please" seem to be easy signs for children to learn, and they can be very useful signs. These kinds of signs, however, can also end up being overused for everything (i.e.: the child signs "more" when he wants a drink, or a cracker, or a toy, or to go outside, etc.) which defeats the purpose of teaching signs. "More" may lose its meaning if it's used too generally. Try to use signs that would naturally occur in a given context.

Sign Language is a great way to communicate with your infant and toddler. it helps to facilitate a strong bond between parents and children. It doesn't have to be complicated; just start adding basic signs to your typical vocabulary.

> SigningTime.com. The signs presented on the signing time video are all ASL signs for very commonly used words in the daily routines of young children, and the signs are presented in a way that is interesting to children (bright colors, catchy tunes and songs and there are many different children demonstrating the signs) and the signs are presented in a variety of contexts (e.g., "water" is shown as a glass of water, an ocean, water from a hose, etc.).

> Baby See n Sign is another sign language video series about which I always hear positive comments. Local libraries often carry sign language videos also which can be borrowed for a couple of weeks.