Baby Sign Language

Last Updated on Sunday, 22 March 2009 05:53 Saturday, 31 January 2009 03:25

Sign language is an excellent way to help promote your child's speech and language skills.  It may seem against common sense to teach sign language as a method to increase talking, but it does work.  By teaching your child signs you give him experience communicating successfully.  He experiences the back and forth interaction that is important in language development.  He learns the value in being able to communicate his wants or needs.  That will typically translate into a child that is more motivated to learn to talk.  Once a child has learned to say a word he will typically stop signing that word because it would be easier for him to say the word instead of signing it.  Some children may have difficulty with oral-motor skills and need sign language to communicate while they are learning to talk.   Others would benefit from signing as a method to learn new words.  

American Sign Language is the method of choice if your child will be signing with other family members, friends, or teachers.  It would also be a good choice if your child is having significant difficulty with sound production or some other situation where your child will need signing to communicate for more than 6 months.  If your focus is only for your baby to be able to communicate with you in the early months before words come you can use American Sign Language or make up your own gestures.

Click here to go to a site that will get you started on how to use some basic signs in American Sign Language.  When choosing signs focus on only 2-3 initially and add more as your child learns them.  Choose a variety of signs like nouns, verbs, expressive words, etc.