Baby Sign Language is a method of communication used with hearing babies and toddlers to communicate before they are able to speak properly.

Babies understand and know what it is that they want from an early age – about 6 months. For some, it can be another 12 months or even longer before they have the ability to communicate these needs with the people around them. How frustrating to know what you want but not be able to speak – this is the reality for our little ones each and every day.

Most parents and caregivers establish a routine with their babies. This does lesson the burden of the frequent misunderstandings however there is an easier way to communicate before this speech is developed fully – it’s called Baby Sign Language. People may think that this is the latest parenting craze or a new trend that you have to keep up with. The truth is that we have instinctually been using baby signs to communicate with our little ones for such a long time. For instance, you may have a particular gesture or facial expression that you use every time you express a certain emotion to your baby. The baby returns these simple gestures with their own sign language – they point, hand you something or they nod their head. Sometimes they extend their arms to you to signal that they want you to pick them up.

Imagine if you could develop this further so that you had 10 – 20 gestures or signals that you consistently used and mutually understood – wouldn’t life be a little easier? That is what baby sign language is all about, simplifying the communication process. Babies are between 12-30 months by the time that they have developed the ability to speak properly. It takes this long because a complicated sequence of events needs to occur before they are able to put together the correct mouth shape, tongue movement and vocal sounds. Until they work this out it is a guessing game. One that sometimes ends in tears (and this works both ways too!). Having a few simple gestures to help you understand each other can provide mutual enjoyment as well as ease the frustration. Learning Baby Sign Language is not only fun but practical and the benefits extend way beyond the first few years.

Baby Sign Language 

Toddler Interpreter teach Baby Signs and they offer the best Free Baby Sign Language Chart  available online and their Baby Sign Language Book is used by parents and childcare centres in the United Kingdom, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand to Teach Baby Sign Language. Sign Language for Babies is easy using Toddler Interpreter’s comprehensive Baby Sign Language Dictionary. Sign Language for Toddlers can help reduce frustration and Baby Sign Language has proved very beneficial for Premature Babies, children with Velo Cardio Facial Syndrome and other babies at risk of developing a speech delay.

In the early years, infant communication is limited mostly to movement of their arms and bodies. Infants use an extensive range of body language, facial expressions and verbal sounds to interact with you. These all eventually evolve into language.

Growth and brain development during these early years, especially the first 2 years is more rapid than at any other stage of a child’s life. One of the most crucial milestones in a child’s development is the development of their social skills and the ability to interact appropriately with others. The basis for appropriate social interaction is effective communication.

Teaching a body language based communication method such as baby sign language at an early age can encourage mutual understanding and provides a strong foundation for the development of social skills. It also enhances the bond between parent and child as they feel understood and secure in their environment and relationships.

Infants are naturally attracted to movement especially when the movement is performed by a parent. Each gesture is to be used with repetition of the associated word making babies more interested in the meaning of keywords from an earlier age. These baby signs will help them express their wants and needs.

Babies and children in general believe that the whole world revolves around them. They are the centre of the universe as they know it. On the contrary though, they have absolutely no control over what happens in their world. They suffer the limitations of a world without speech. For children with slightly delayed speech development this frustration can often be the worst. As boys tend to speak later than girls, this frustration in boys can sometimes lead to problems with aggression. Some children are simply more interested in developing their motor skills than their verbal skills. Either way, signing with them from an early age will help their communication development.

Teaching your baby sign language also teaches them that there is more to communication and social interaction than just words. Effective communication does involve hand gestures, body movements and facial expression. Being a visual language it is fascinating to children as it stimulates their curiosity and attentiveness towards further communication.

Toddler Interpreter teach Baby Signs and they offer the best Free Baby Sign Language Chart  available online and their Baby Sign Language Book is used by parents and childcare centres in the United Kingdom, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand to Teach Baby Sign Language. Sign Language for Babies is easy using Toddler Interpreter’s comprehensive Baby Sign Language Dictionary. Sign Language for Toddlers can help reduce frustration and Baby Sign Language has proved very beneficial for Premature Babies, children with Velo Cardio Facial Syndrome and other babies at risk of developing a speech delay.

Baby Sign Language research started over 30 years ago, almost simultaneously taking place in two camps, Joseph Garcia in one and Linda Acredolo and Susan Goodwyn in the other.

Joseph Garcia, as sign language interpreter, had a wide network of friends in the deaf community. He noted that the hearing offspring of signing deaf parents used signing long before their spoken language developed.

Drs. Linda Acredolo and Susan Goodwyn conducted a longitudinal study funded by the National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development using a collection of baby sign language gestures that they called ‘Baby Signs’. The study showed that babies taught Baby Sign Language understood more words, had larger vocabularies and engaged in more sophisticated play than non-signing babies. Parents of the babies in the study using Baby Sign Language noted decreased frustration, increased communication, and enriched parent-infant bonding. They revisited the families in the original Baby Sign Language study when the children were seven and eight years old. The children who used Baby Sign Language had a mean IQ of 114 compared to the non-signing control group’s mean of 102 (Acredolo and Goodwyn, 2000). Since these early days Baby Sign Language has grown into a worldwide phenomenon.

The Baby Sign Language forged ahead with these two themes, one teaching the language of the hearing impaired the other teaching the original Baby Sign Language program. There is an obvious benefit to the offspring of those who suffer from hearing disabilities. It was also clear from the original Baby Sign Language research that there were benefits to teaching baby signs to children that were not hard of hearing or otherwise at risk of developmental delay.

Since the early days however the focus has changed from simple gestures of Baby Sign Language to communicating with hearing babies using the official language of the deaf community. Even the original Baby Sign Language program pioneered by Drs Acredolo and Goodwyn has evolved into teaching official American Sign Language (ASL). In fact, today, it is a challenge to find any Baby Sign Language resource that is specifically designed for hearing babies; they are all now based on adult sign language.

Today, Baby Sign Language virtually exists as American Sign Language (ASL), British Sign Language (BSL) or Australian Sign Language (AUSLAN) repackaged with a stock photo of a baby on the front cover. Is there any benefit to teaching adult sign language to children that are not hearing impaired? Are we now focusing too much on teaching an adult sign language and losing out on the benefits that the original Baby Sign Language program offered?

Acredolo and Goodwyn (2004) state: “Research has shown that signs are easiest for babies and for parents when they involve simple gestures and when they resemble the things they stand for, e.g. fingers to lips for ‘eat’; arms out straight like wings for ‘airplane.’” If you reinforce particular gestures and particular sounds, babies will develop their communication skills in several different modalities. There does appear to be a short period during which infants can produce more differentiated and controlled hand gestures than speech sounds, but it is a transitory phase.

Is it ethical to be selling the language of the deaf community as a resource for baby’s speech development? Where are the profits of this clever marketing going; rarely do they go back into the deaf community.

Almost all of the marketing material for these so called Baby Sign Language products display children using these resources who are clearly pre-school age and older. There is good reason for this; the traditional sign language signs such as ASL are quite possibly too difficult for most very little hands to do. At 4 months of age a baby will not be able to make ballerina hands, finger spell the alphabet.

Baby Sign Language should be simple enough to be useful for the short period of time before the child can communicate with words. This encompasses an age gap of 4 months to 30 months. The exception to this is if the child has a specific need to communicate with those who are hard of hearing or if the child is showing signs of developmental delay in which case traditional sign language would be recommended.

The research was clear. The benefits of early communication with baby sign language based on simple gestures included earlier speech development, better language comprehension and less guessing games for parents.

“We don’t care if people want to use formal sign language, but it’s not necessary,” Acredolo said. “Kids stop using signs as they speak more words, so the “baby signs” are meant to be temporary.”

Toddler Interpreter teach Baby Signs and they offer the best Free Baby Sign Language Chart  available online and their Baby Sign Language Book is used by parents and childcare centres in the United Kingdom, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand to Teach Baby Sign Language. Sign Language for Babies is easy using Toddler Interpreter’s comprehensive Baby Sign Language Dictionary. Sign Language for Toddlers can help reduce frustration and Baby Sign Language has proved very beneficial for Premature Babies, children with Velo Cardio Facial Syndrome and other babies at risk of developing a speech delay.