Teach Your Baby Sign Language: Communicate Before Speaking

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One of the best things we have done with Andrew was to teach him some sign language. My wife works with children on the autism spectrum and because of this, we are familiar with the use of signs.  She uses them with nonverbal children, who do not yet have the ability to express their wants and needs.

Recently, many parents have applied the same principles of sign language to babies. Being a baby must be frustrating. They have a desire to communicate with their parents, but they lack the ability to speak. Through signing, however, they now have a way to communicate with us, expressing their wants and needs. This is far more effective than communicating through crying or throwing a tantrum!

Teaching babies how to sign has many positive effects that they carry on through their development. Studies have shown that babies who learn signing at a young age generally have a higher I.Q., larger vocabulary, and advanced mental development. Signing also promotes a stronger parent-child relationship earlier in life.

Andrew just turned one and he has learned a few signs so far. He is able to sign “eat”, “hi/bye”, “all  done”, “more”, and “read.” After a few weeks of consistent reinforcement, Andrew learned his first sign-”more.”  After he got the first sign, he started to learn new signs much more quickly, usually in a matter of days. It is an amazing feeling when you see your baby start to communicate with you in a meaningful way.

So how did we do it? We waited for the readiness clues. One clue is that he started to make simple hand gestures, like “hi.” Another clue to look out for is when you can keep consistent eye contact with your baby.

The recommended time to start teaching sign language to babies is between 6 and 12 months (we started around 9 months with Andrew).

The first sign we taught him was “more” because it is one of the easiest signs to learn.  Although some people think this is a bad sign to use because you may not know what your child wants more of, this is where we started.  You sign for  more by bringing both hands together. When you teach your baby his first sign, you want it to be a “need” based sign. These include “drink”, “eat”, and “more.”

Here is what we did to teach Andrew the sign for “more”:

• First, we would give him a snack. When he ate it, we would wait to give him another one.
• Then, we got his attention and made eye contact.
• We proceeded to ask him, “Do you want more?” while taking his hands and doing the sign for him.
• We then gave him another snack to reinforce his positive behavior.
• We did this each time he wanted another snack. Eventually this moved beyond snacks and he was able to sign “more” for anything he wanted more of.

It took about two weeks until he started to sign by himself. After the first sign, he seemed to catch on to what we were teaching him. Now it is at the point where we don’t have to ask, he just signs whenever he wants to eat, wants more, or is finished with something.

I highly recommend to all new parents to at least attempt to teach your child sign language. I can’t tell you how helpful it is to have Andrew show us what he wants, instead of screaming and crying for it. He honestly never tantrums and I think it is because he can effectively communicate with us.

If you are interesting in teaching your baby how to sign, check out these excellent resources:

• Babies and Sign Language: Teach your Infant or Toddlers Signs
• Sign With Your Baby: Baby Sign Language Kit @ Amazon.com
• Wikipedia: Sign language in infants and toddlers.
• ASL: 100 First Signs.

Print out this excellent cheat sheet from signwithme.com and hang it on your refrigerator!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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