Benefits of Teaching Your Baby to Sign

Baby sign language is a technique where very young children and infants are taught to communicate through American Sign Language. Supporters of baby sign language teaching boast that this technique enables these children the ability to communicate when verbal skills are not yet developed.

Some benefits of baby sign language are:

Less frustration-induced temper tantrums -

Imagine, as an adult, how frustrating it would be to NOT be able to communicate or needs to another person. Very young children experience this frustration many times as day as their verbal skills are not developed fully to enable them to communicate their needs. In young children, lack of being understood leads to frustration and this frustration tends to lead to a full-blown temper tantrum. Temper tantrums are not necessarily behavior problems, they are more communication problems.

Giving your baby the opportunity to communicate effectively can severely decrease the amount of temper tantrums in your home.

Less Frustration for Parents -

As a parent, wouldn't it be wonderful to know exactly what your child wanted each time they cried or tried to communicate with you? Baby sign language offers simple hand motions to signal, "tired", "hungry", "cold", "more" and many, many other simple terms.

Baby sign language begins the process of effective communication between parent and child. Being able to understand, and respond, to your child's needs is a crucial step in nurturing your child and strengthening the bond.

"Speeding Up" Your Child's Verbal Communication Skills

Research has been conducted at both the University of California and California State University to determine the benefits of using baby sign language as a part of parenting. Many concerns had been raised regarding the possible detriment to a child's verbal learning by the use of learning sign language. Though out the testing at these two universities, the opposite was determined. Teaching baby sign language actually appeared to enhance the learning of verbal skills of the children involved.

Learning American Sign Language

What a wonderful gift to your child, and to your self, to learn a life-enhancing skill such as sign language! There are so many hearing-impaired individuals who go through life not being able to verbally communicate with others. By teaching, and learning, baby sign language, you are also giving both you and your child the ability to communicate with the hearing-impaired.

Experts have stated that children as young as six months old are able to start learning baby sign language and would be able to use that same sign language by the time they are eight months old. Most children are not completely verbally-adept until they are 3-years old. Using baby sign language could make for a less frustrating time during those pre-verbal years. Using baby sign language in your home could help make those "terrible twos" not-so-terrible!