Baby Sign Language Blog

Teaching your baby sign language is good for both parent and your child.  In this article, we examine the effects of singing with your baby and some evidence of the benefits of baby sign language.  You can be assured; signing with your baby is a wonderful thing. 

Many people are amazed that children as young as 6 months old can learn sign language, thinking “How can that baby sign, when she can’t even talk?” But babies have always signed, albeit on an informal basis.  Babies develop the muscles in their hands before they develop the fine muscles of the mouth required for talking.  Thus, babies are equipped to communicate with you with their hands before they can speak. Most babies invent their own signs in order to convey their thoughts.  For example, babies often hold their hands out when they want to be picked up and held.  This, of course, is a form of communication.

The fact is, a baby knows what you are saying long before she is able to speak.  That is, her “receptive language” develops before she is able to talk. The fact that a baby cannot speak does not mean she cannot understand.  In fact, babies understand a great deal before they can talk.  So be careful what you say in front of your baby!  Remember, the reason babies don’t speak isn’t necessarily because they don’t understand.  It may just be for a lack of the ability to control the movements of the mouth and tongue that are necessary to talk.  Those movements are undeveloped until babies are around two years old.  But at a much earlier age, babies can control the hand movements necessary to produce signs.  So don’t underestimate your baby.  She will amaze you by what she can say, with her hands! 

Now that we know how babies sign, the question becomes whether or not they should sign.  The single biggest myth about teaching baby sign language is that it can delay a baby’s speech.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  There is absolutely no evidence that signing is in any way associated with delayed speaking.  Research on baby sign language clearly shows that signing children develop spoken words much faster than non-signing children. Signing is physically and cognitively stimulating for your baby.  Signing stimulates your child’s auditory, visual and kinesthetic senses.  (She hears you speak, sees your movements and imitates your movements.) In fact, research indicates that signing may be beneficial to children with speech development disorders, such as autism.  And signing children typically become smarter adults, with higher IQs, than non-signging children.  So, have no doubt, teaching a baby sign language is good for her overall development.  

Aside from her overall development, there is a more practical reason to teach your baby to sign. Signing allows parents to communicate with pre-verbal babies!  The frustration of not knowing what a child wants or needs is a primary source of the stress in parents’ lives.  Parents who teach their children to sign avoid much of this frustration.  And a child’s ability to communicate at an early age enhances her overall development.  Social interaction is crucial to a child’s development.  By teaching baby to sign, she communicates earlier and more often. This provides her with another outlet to express her emotions and communicate with other older children and adults. Ultimately, she will be more advanced, cognitively and socially, than non-signing children of the same age.  So go ahead, have fun teaching your baby sign language.