Baby Sign Language?

[Doganharp]

Could this possibly hold any value? I'm all about ASL, but what use could an infant possibly use it for? Does it have ANY beneficial effects?

[Lisa Simpson]

I used it to help communicate with my second son who was severely speech disabled as a baby.

[Professor Yaffle]

There is a previous thread on this, I will see if I can find it.

[Mrs. Upchurch]

My understanding is that the same part of the brain is used for language, be it verbal or signed. That is why many times Speech Pathologists recommend sign language for children having trouble with speech. They can determine if there is actually a language problem, a physical problem, or if they just need to approach speech differently at first. It was kind of amazing to watch my Godson go from being taught a few signs to making up his own (which turned out to be close what the actual sign was) to learning to talk. I think more and more people are learning that different kids learn differently.

[Professor Yaffle]

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=108659

[LibraryLady]

I believe I said in the other thread that one of my niece's taught her son and daughter, and it was great to be able to know what they actually wanted instead of having to guess. Milk? Diaper? Book? etc.

[Blackwell]

My son (that little guy on the left) is 2 1/2 and has Down Syndrome. He's a bright little guy, but because of the low muscle tone, he has a lot of trouble forming words. Sign language has helped us out a lot. He signs eat, hungry, water, more, book, please, thank you, etc. -- and probably 100 more words (he knows more signing than I do.) He, my wife, and myself would be EXTREMELY frustrated if we didn't have this form of communication.

[Professor Yaffle]

IMHO it is very helpful fr children who have disabilities affecting their communication. In children without these problems it might mean you can understand them a little earlier than if you waited for speech (and it can be a nice activity to do), but not for every kid - because production is not necessarily the barrier to communication. My 2 year old can produce all sorts of sounds and occasional words, but even the ones he does use, he uses very infrequently and I don't think he has ever used speech to communicate a need - he just uses them to label things he notices occasionally. He was the same with gestures - he didn't wave "bye bye" or point much when he was younger, so I doubt baby signing would have been at all useful for him.

There are people out there who claim that it advances language skills (ie reach speech/language milestones earlier) but I don't think the evidence is there for that.

[ZirconBlue]

We used Baby Signs with our daughter. The theory, which seems to have played out in our case, is that children can understand language and communicate before they are able to speak. We had several months of our daughter being able to communicate her needs ("water", "apple", "diaper change", etc.) before she was actually able to communicate those needs verbally. Overall, I think it reduces frustration on both the parents' and child's parts during that pre-verbal period.

[Wolfman]

Could this possibly hold any value? I'm all about ASL, but what use could an infant possibly use it for? Does it have ANY beneficial effects?
Well, as someone who is actually running a company to teach baby sign language, let me do my best to answer that (realizing, of course, that I will be somewhat biased).

First, I think we must define what we mean by "value". There are a wide variety of claims made in regards to the potential benefits of sign language.

* Improved IQ -- this is the most controversial claim, based primarily on one study (conducted by a company that itself teaches baby sign language), and that has never been submitted for peer review. I believe it is at least possible that there is some validity to this claim (based on the idea that stimulating the brain in any manner during the first year of life can help develop and maintain important neural pathways); but significantly more research needs to be done before any conclusions can be drawn. I'd also suspect that if the claim proves to have some validity, it will be quite variable in regards to the effects on each baby.

* Improves language skills -- there have been more studies done that indicate that, at least between 12-18 months of age, infants who started learning baby sign language from 6 months old will learn to speak more quickly and easily. Furthermore, their spoken vocabulary will be supplemented with a signing vocabulary, so they'll be able to communicate more to you than they would if they relied only on a spoken vocabulary. However, again, I'd say that more study needs to be done before definitive conclusions can be drawn.

* Improves communication (and decreases frustration) between parents and babies. This is the claim that I'd say bears the greatest credibility. Virtually every parent I know who has used baby sign language with their children reports a noticeable decrease in frustration...both for themselves, and for their baby. This is less marked in the 6-12 month period...but between 12-18 months, when the baby is desperate to communicate with its parents, but has physiological limits to what they can express verbally, it can be a real godsend.

A few other points:

* Lots of parents say, "My baby uses gestures on their own, I don't need to learn this". They are right...to a point. Babies do use gestures. And this indicates that, for babies, gestures are a natural form of communication. However, if the baby must come up with the gestures on their own, they are never going to develop many gestures; whereas if you specifically work to teach them new gestures, they will not only come to understand the meaning of those gestures, but will find it a natural way to communicate with their parents if they are unable to vocalize the words they want to say.

* Calling it "language" can also be misleading. At least in the earlier stages, it is far more appropriate to call it "baby gestures" than "baby sign language". However, as the child grows, and both oral and signing vocabularies increase, it will become a true language. The extent to which the baby learns this language will depend on the parents.

* At around 18 months, there no longer seems to be a significant benefit in regards to vocabularly...the oral vocabulary will catch up with the signing vocabulary. However, it is a well demonstrated fact of learning that the more parts of the brain that are involved in the process of learning something, the more quickly it will be learned, and the more easily it will be remembered. If children are learning while using both oral language and sign language, it can facilitate learning, acquisition, and retention both of new words, and new concepts.

* Even though some studies have shown correlations between the use of baby sign language and improved language skills, the question remains whether this improvement is a direct result of the baby sign language itself, or if it is simply because parents who are using it tend to spend more time trying to communicate with their child.

* All that being said, I don't think anyone is "hurting" their baby by not using sign language with them. Nor do I think that it should be used in the pursuit of creating some sort of super-baby. It should be used with the primary motivation simply of improving communication between parent and baby.