As a parent, you’re already familiar with your baby’s frustration when they need to communicate something, but just don’t have the means to do so. Learning to sign with your baby is one possible way of bridging this communication gap. Rather than throwing tantrums or crying, while you stand helplessly by with no idea of what he or she needs, they can use baby sign language to tell you, or at least give you a hint. This can reduce their frustration and be one way of making your relationship more relaxed.
It’s reasonable to speculate that sign language for babies is a good method of trying to bridge the gap between the need to communicate and the tools to do it. After all, the baby is communicating in certain symbolic ways already. There’s no direct connection between crying and “I am angry,” yet a particular type of crying gets that point across to parents very clearly. The baby responds to smiles, frowns and gestures, and even makes some vague gestures back. So if you sign with your baby, this may simply be a refinement and expansion of something that’s already going on.
The actual research into the benefits of teaching baby sign language is just beginning, but so far it appears to be promising. A few American research teams, led by L.P. Acredolo and S.W. Goodwyn, have produced some very interesting results. These seem to suggest that learning sign language helps babies increase their mental development, reduce problem behaviors, eventually acquire larger vocabularies, and improve relationships between parents and babies. Thus far, it seems that learning a baby sign language is very likely to improve life for the child even after he or she grows older and begins speaking.
What research has been done does not yet conclusively ensure that if you sign with your baby, all of these great results will happen. However, the evidence is very promising. And there are many parents who present anecdotal evidence that baby signing really makes a difference in their baby’s mental well being, not to mention increasing their ability to communicate with each other. Using a bit of sign language with your baby will certainly not hurt, and may even be a great help to both of you.
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