Teaching Baby to Sign

Ever feel like your baby is speaking a language you just don’t understand? With many babies and toddlers, the message just doesn’t get through. However, an excess of parents have found teaching their babies sign language makes life a little easier for everyone.

There are many benefits of your baby or toddler learning how to communicate through sign language. Emotional benefits include a reduction in frustration and an increase in self-esteem. Sign language opens up two-way communication between parents and babies and decreases the chance of a miscommunication (not to mention tantrums that usually result from these miscommunications). By being able to sign, babies can influence their environment in a positive productive manner and achieve the task they have in mind.

There are also long-term benefits to babies learning sign language. Research has showed that by the time children reach age four, the ones who learned baby sign language as either infants or toddlers have an enhanced vocabulary compared with those who did not. A study done in elementary schools showed that sign language assisted the children in linking visuals and linguistics to form a complete idea and helped them create a word and concept packet. This helped the child better clarify oral and written instructions.

Not sure where to start? Choose at least six signs to start with. It is important for your babies or toddler to see you signing in many different contexts in everyday life. This will allow him or her to understand how the signs relate to their world. Keeping this is mind; limit the amount of signs to start with to a maximum of twelve. Using too many signs will delay the time in which it will take your child to sign back to you. Instead of using sign language to supplement English, you would be expecting your baby to learn sign language in addition to the English language. Once your baby or toddler starts responding and signing a few signs back to you, you can add on to your initial set of six to twelve signs.

When choosing the signs to teach your child, make sure to stick with ones that you will use most in on a daily basis. Signs like EAT, MILK and MORE will be used numerous times throughout a day with your child, however, signs like BUBBLES or COOK may not be used frequently enough for your child to catch on.

Some good signs to start with are WHAT; HELP; EAT; WHERE; MORE; FINISHED; MILK; DRINK; BED; BATH, BALL; BABY.

Here are some examples of simple signs based on American Sign Language to get you started:

MORE: Tap fingertips from your right hand together with fingertips from your left hand repeatedly.

MILK: Repeatedly open and close your fist, as if milking a cow.

EAT: Use your hand to bring imaginary food to your mouth.

FINISH: Flip hands over, with a turn of your wrist, as if dropping something you are done with.

DRINK: Tip an imaginary cup to your mouth.

BABY: Rock an imaginary baby in your arms.

BED: Tap the side of your head, as if laying on a pillow.

BALL: Curve your hands and bounce them together in a ball shape.

BATH: Rub hands on upper chest, with fists closed and thumbs pointing up.

HELP: Place one fist with thumb pointing up on top of palm of other hand. The palmed hand “helps” push the fisted hand up.

WHERE: Move finger in pendulum motion.

WHAT: Make a natural questioning gesture with hands.

There are many local programs, books and DVDs that will help you along this journey to better communication with your baby or toddler.

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