Baby Sign Language Online

Modern baby sign language research began in the 1980′s, when psychology professors Linda Acredolo and Susan Goodwyn began extensive research and wrote the best-selling book Baby Signs: How to Talk with Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk which contained dozens of examples of children and families who benefited from using signs with their babies. While the baby sign language trend has proliferated around the world, some parents wonder whether sign language delays speech. “What we found was exactly the opposite,” says Acredolo, who conducted a study, funded by the National Institute of Health, that asked that question. It’s analogous to the relationship between crawling and walking – one facilitates the other. When babies have sign language as a tool, “they look for better and better ways to communicate, and (spoken) words are the natural step,” she notes.

Dr. Acredolo and Dr. Goodwyn did extensive research on babies and toddlers who learned signs from their parents. They list some of the benefits they learned during their research:
“With these signs literally at your baby’s fingertips, communication between you can flourish during that difficult time from about nine to thirty months, when your baby’s desire to communicate outstrips her capacity to say words….Our ten years of scholarly research on Baby Signs have proved conclusively that adding these gestures to a baby’s repertoire not only leads to better communication; it also speeds up the process of learning to talk, stimulates intellectual development, enhances self-esteem, and strengthens the bond between parent and infant.”

In 1987, an American scientist, Joseph Garcia, began researching babies’ sign language at the Alaska Pacific University. He suggests that babies can begin learning baby sign language as early as six months when they are introduced to basic symbols such as ‘eat’, ‘drink’, ‘milk’, ‘more’, and ‘no’. In this research he used American Sign Language to teach hearing babies of hearing parents.

Research has shown that children who learn two languages at the same time – including ASL and English – can go back and forth between languages at ease. For instance – a hearing baby with a deaf father and hearing mother will be able to sign with her father and speak with her mother and will use the appropriate attention getters with each one.

In essence, baby sign language research has shown no negative effects on a baby’s speech development, despite some parents worrying that learning sign language will delay speech. In fact, all research indicates the opposite is true, that teaching babies sign language will actually promote a richer vocabulary and earlier vocalisation of words. In fact, the most helpful thing parents can probably do for their children between the ages of eight and 12 months is to encourage them to point, since there is very sound research suggesting that the use of pointing is associated with joint attention and the development of object naming and language development.

A ten-year study at the University of California at Davis found that seven-year-olds who signed as babies scored an average of twelve points higher on the standard IQ test than members of a control group who didn’t sign as babies. According to researchers Linda Acredolo and Susan Goodwyn, signing babies tend to develop higher IQs than babies who do not sign. Visit signing for babies to discover more benefits to teaching your baby sign language. Baby sign language research and data prove that signing with your baby is a good thing – and it’s fun too!

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