Sign Language for Babies

If both you and your baby have perfectly good hearing, the benefits of learning and teaching sign language may not seem immediately obvious. However, teaching a pre-verbal child some basic signs has been shown to facilitate more effective communication, ease frustration, develop language skills and build self esteem, so it’s definitely something to look in to.

It is well documented that children can understand language far earlier than they are able to speak. Once a child has a basic comprehension of what you are saying they may want to communicate back and the lack of ability to do this can lead to frustration for the both of you. Since their motor skills develop in advance of the ability to form most words, by using simple hand signs for ‘eat’, ‘drink’ and ‘more’, your child can learn to let you know their needs in a way that makes crying and tantrums a thing of the past!

I started teaching my baby the sign for ‘more’ after starting with solid foods at 6 months. I persevered on and off for quite a few months and was beginning to think that she just was not getting the idea. Then all of a sudden when I gave her some banana once she finished it she asked for ‘more’ using the sign! From then on it’s been a joy to watch her grasp a variety of signs and use them to express her needs, desires and moods. We repeat the same words at appropriate times each day to reinforce them and at the moment she generally learns 5-10 new signs a week. It’s really great fun!

I have chosen to use standard American Sign Language (ASL) as our form of non-verbal communication and it is worth noting that sign languages around the world do differ so you need to choose appropriately for your country or region. There are some guide books to special ‘baby signs’ and some people just make up their own but although these latter options can make the signs easier to grasp, the disadvantage is that they are effectively useless after the baby has grown out of using them. Personally it seems far better to teach both myself and my child a useful language that will enable us to communicate with a person who is genuinely deaf or hard of hearing in the future and is a life-long learning experience.

Since the popularity of teaching sign language to babies has blossomed there have been criticisms that it hinders or stunts language development. In fact there have been no studies to date that have shown this idea to be correct. In fact the opposite is true, as when signing you always say the word along with the sign and ask questions around learning the sign. This encourages parents to talk to the child in more elaborate ways and their vocabulary is expanded. Also most children are so keen to grasp the fundamentals of their mother tongue they will try to vocalise the word at the same time as performing the sign and when they reach an age where they can talk they will rarely substitute a sign for using the spoken word. Signing gives you and your baby a whole new additional language rather than limiting your main one.

Signing with my baby has given her the tools to communicate in this pre-speech phase of her life and it is obvious to see from the looks on her face how empowered she is by being able to express herself in a way that is understood. It is also fun for me to learn new signs and be educated in this way.

I started signing after watching a You Tube video from ‘My Smart Hands’ founded by Laura Berg. They have some great educational downloads on their website and lots of information on signing. They have also just developed a dictionary with a range of signs and an explanation of how to use them which is useful and you also get to watch Laura’s extra cute girl, Fireese, doing many of the signs too which is a real inspiration. These days I also use the online dictionary of American Sign Language developed by Michigan State University which is perfect for learning specific words each day.

Just learning a few simple signs can make the world of difference for you and your child. I’d love to hear comments from anyone who has experiences of using sign language with babies and children.