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Baby sign language has become increasingly popular for parents to teach their infants.
But why?
Well, we all know that sometimes it’s challenging to understand what your baby needs! From ages 0-2.5 years old, infants and toddlers primarily cry to communicate their wants and needs.
But crying can be really exhausting for young children and their parents. And it usually increases both the baby’s and the parent’s cortisol levels.
A Way to Communicate With Your Baby Without Using Speech
Teaching your child sign language can improve communication, therefore less crying and less stress for both the parent and child.
Sign language is terrific because it can create communication before the child can use speech more effectively.
Collingwood mentions, “From the parents’ point of view, the baby signing could bring many advantages. It helps reduce the guesswork of understanding your infant’s thoughts, as well as allowing two-way conversations… It also could save much time and frustration.”
Frustration becomes increasingly noticeable from children when they are in the toddler stage. Temper tantrums begin to occur, and they also get injured more frequently as they become more mobile.
Therefore, it’s often challenging for them to verbally communicate why they are upset or what hurts them.
The inability for a child to communicate while they are already upset can add more to their frustration leading them to cry more. But teaching your baby sign language increases communication and decreases frustration between the parent and child.
Sign Language Increases the Parent-Child Bond
“If your baby knows how to use sign language,” Hall states, “it can help him/ her express their wants and emotions before they can speak… such communication can strengthen the parent-child bonds”.
Children want to be understood equally as much as the parents want to know what they want and need!
By removing this barrier, children can communicate their thoughts and feelings.
Psychologist Dr. Gwyneth Doherty- Sneddon of the University of Stirling, UK states, “Communication is at the heart of child development, be it cognitive, social, emotional, or behavioral.”
By using sign language, parents can break the communication barrier. Therefore, making the parents feel more helpful, and children feel more understood because they’re receiving constant recognition and immediate feedback.
Can Sign Language Effect Your Baby’s Speech Development?
It has become common among parents to wonder if sign language can delay speech in hearing and cognitively healthy children.
This concern is brought up because teaching sign language can create the ability to communicate without using speech.
But, teaching children to multitask the gesture of words with saying the word itself is hugely beneficial.
Signing helps give kids another tool for remembering spelling words and leaves a larger imprint on the brain.
Our muscles have their own mini-memories, so when we add signing a word to saying the word, it is much easier to remember. And when you hear the word and see the word spoken, it leaves a much stronger imprinting on the brain!
Also, American Sign Language signs are often closely tied to the words’ actual meaning.
They make sense-such as cupping your hand behind the ear to sign “listen.” So this really helps young children learn words and their meanings quickly.
So quickly that young children can become almost a full year ahead of average speech development!
Psychologist Linda Acredolo, the co-author of “Baby Signs: How to Talk with Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk,” has research published in the Journal of Nonverbal Behavior stating, “At 36 months, the [signing] babies in our study were speaking, on average, the equivalent of non-signing 47-month-olds”.
The Best Time to Learn Sign Language
“During the first 3 years of life, when the brain is developing and maturing, is the most intensive period for acquiring speech and language skills.”
Children will learn and apply this language as they would for another language. But sign language is unique for babies because it allows children to communicate well before speaking words.
When Can Infants Begin to Sign?
Researchers state that parents can begin to teach their baby sign language at 4-6 months old, and they will typically start to sign back at 8 or 9 months old.
How to Teach Your Baby Sign Language?
I highly recommend getting baby sign language children’s books so you can read these daily with your baby and teach them the sign language while reading!
And if you’re not great at these signs either yet, it’s the perfect way for you to learn and practice too!
When I taught my daughter some signs as a baby, I used youtube to learn baby signs, then I would just apply them to our daily lives.
Still, I highly recommend also getting the sign language baby books! I wish I did this because I think it would have been even easier and quicker to teach my daughter!
Sources:
Teaching Your Baby Sign Language Can Benefit Both of You
Enhancing Early Communication through Infant Sign Training
DISCLAIMER: This post contains affiliate links, meaning I may get a commission if you decide to purchase something through my links at no cost to you. Please read my Disclaimer for more info.
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