Enhancing Communication and Safety

Celebrating National Baby Safety Month with the Baby Signs® Program

Welcoming a new baby into your life is an exhilarating experience, accompanied by immense joy and a strong desire to keep your little one safe. As parents and caregivers, ensuring the safety and well-being of your baby becomes a top priority. This National Baby Safety Month, let's explore an innovative way to enhance communication and safety for your baby: Baby Signs®.

The Importance of Baby Safety

September is celebrated as National Baby Safety Month, a time when parents, caregivers, and communities come together to raise awareness about the safety measures necessary for infants and young children. From creating safe sleep environments and securing furniture to practicing car seat safety, this month encourages everyone to take proactive steps to protect the youngest members of our society.

Baby Signs®: A Gateway to Effective Communication

In the journey of parenting, communication takes on an entirely new dimension with the arrival of a baby. While babies may not be able to verbally express themselves, they are incredibly receptive to communication cues. This is where the Baby Signs® Program comes into play. Baby Signs® is a program that teaches babies and toddlers simple sign language to help them communicate their needs, feelings, and thoughts well before they can speak.

How Baby Signs® Work

The Baby Signs® Program utilizes basic American Sign Language (ASL) that are tailored to suit the motor skills of pre-verbal infants and toddlers. Parents and caregivers are encouraged to use these signs in conjunction with verbal language to create a comprehensive mode of communication. The benefits of Baby Signs® extend beyond enhancing communication – they can also play a significant role in promoting safety.

"I Know What To Do" music from the If You're Happy & You Know It album and the MORE Sign, Say & Play™ Safety Class"

Baby Signs® and Safety

Expressing Needs: Babies often have a difficult time conveying their needs, leading to frustration. By teaching them signs for essentials like "eat," "milk," "diaper," and "sleep," parents can respond more effectively to their baby's needs, reducing instances of discomfort and distress.

Emergency Signs: Teach your baby signs that relate to safety, such as "help," "hurt," or "hot." In the event of an unforeseen situation, the baby's ability to use these signs could potentially alert caregivers to any issues they may be experiencing.

Identifying Allergies or Discomfort: Signs like "hurt" or "hot" can empower babies to indicate when something is wrong. This could be especially valuable in cases where a baby is too young to verbally express discomfort, such as experiencing an allergic reaction.

Instructional Signs: As babies grow into toddlers and begin to explore their surroundings, teaching signs like "stop," "dirty," and "wait" can contribute to their safety by helping them understand boundaries and potential hazards.

National Baby Safety Month and Baby Signs®: A Perfect Pair

As we celebrate National Baby Safety Month, incorporating infant sign language into your parenting toolkit can be a wonderful way to enhance both communication and safety. By giving your baby the means to express themselves and enabling them to understand important safety-related signs, you're taking proactive steps to ensure their well-being.

Incorporating the Baby Signs® Program into your daily routine doesn't require extensive effort. There are resources available online, including videos, books, music, and classes, that can guide you through the process. By dedicating time to learn and practice these signs, you're investing in your baby's development and safety.

National Baby Safety Month serves as a powerful reminder of the responsibility we have to protect and nurture our youngest family members. This September, consider the incredible potential of Baby Signs® in enhancing communication and safety for your baby. By embracing this innovative approach, you're not only providing a means for your baby to express themselves, but you're also empowering them to participate actively in their own safety and well-being journey.

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Teach your baby safety signs like Afraid, All Done, Dirty, Fast/Slow, Gentle, Hot, Hot/Cold, Hurt, Listen, Mask, Quiet, Sit Down, Stop, Up/Down, Wait and Wash. Order the Safety Signs Printable Poster Pack!

Resources and additional safety tips:

https://www.jpma.org/page/baby_safety_month
https://www.safekids.org/blog/5-tips-new-parents-during-baby-safety-month
https://www.cpsc.gov/Safety-Education/Safety-Guides/Cribs-Kids-and-Babies/Baby-Safety-Month

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#BabySigns #babysignlanguage #BabySafetyMonth #EarlyCommunication #ParentingTips #SignLanguageForBabies

Baby Signs Poster: ASL sign for "eat"

How Long Does a Sign Last?

One of the questions that our Baby Signs® Instructors hear frequently from parents is how long a sign stays in a baby’s repertoire before the word appears. Of course, the answer is that it varies enormously. If the sign is substituting for a relatively easy word like “ball” or “more,” the word may appear relatively quickly. But even then it depends on the sound that the word starts with—“b” and “m” and “d” sounds being considerably earlier to appear than “j” and “l” and “sh” sounds. Of course, if the word is long and complicated, like “hippopotamus” or “alligator,” the sign is likely to stick around longer.

The answer to how long a sign is used also depends on what strategy a child tends to favor. Our government funded research revealed that some children use signs to free them to work on learning words for other things. For example, a baby who has signs for “dog” and “more” may be content to rely on them and make learning the words for “cat” and “all gone” a higher priority. In other words, these babies tend to hold on to their signs for quite a while, using them to increase the number of things they can talk about.

Other babies seem to use signs to speed up learning the word a sign stands for. In these cases, the word appears relatively quickly. The logic lies in the fact that the more frequently a baby uses a sign, the more often adults respond by saying the word, thereby providing more opportunities for the child to learn it.

So, there are lots of answers to the question of how long signs last—especially given that all these strategies can play a role in a single child’s journey from sign to words!

Happy Signing! (and don’t forget to look for us on Facebook)

Linda

Linda Acredolo, Ph.D.
Co-Founder, the Baby Signs® Program
and
Professor Emeritus, UC Davis

Grammies and Papas: Great Signing Teachers

The fact that my twin-grandchildren, Nate and Olivia, are nearing their 4th birthday reminds me how long I’ve been writing this blog! Some of the earliest entries were about them—the frightening image of seeing barely 3-pound babies in the NICU with all sorts of tubes and monitors around them, the magic of holding them when they were carefully lifted from their Isolettes, the miracle of their first birthday when it was truly clear that they would grow up strong and healthy.

And then there are the memories of all the signing we did together: how enchanted Nate was with flowers and would sniff (his sign for flower) wherever he saw them; how Olivia, always hungry, would make good use of the “more” sign; and how they would excitedly sign “moon” and take me outside to see it up in the daylight sky.

The chance to be with them and watch them sign reminds me that grandparents make ideal teachers of signs—whether it be to their own grandchildren or to other children in their communities. The reason is that the experience of raising their own children enables them to recognize how helpful signs are in avoiding the tears and tantrums that arise when infants and toddlers need to communicate but simply can’t.

Grandparents also tend to have the patience and wisdom that come with years of dealing with people of all ages, enabling them to approach both parents and children with confidence and caring. Finally, from their life experiences they truly understand that successful communication fosters love and understanding—a wonderful gift for any grandparent to give--and to receive.

That’s why we are pleased that more and more grandparents are joining our Baby Signs® Independent Certified Instructor (ICI) team. Our ICI program enables individuals to set their own hours and work as much or as little as they want, all the time earning income while helping families and childcare centers enjoy all the benefits that signing can bring.

If you are a grandparent or know of one who might make a great Baby Signs® teacher, pass along this link to a video describing our instructor program.

Happy Signing (and don’t forget to follow us on Facebook)!

Linda Acredolo, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus, UC Davis
and
Co-Founder, The Baby Signs® Program

Baby Sign Language: A Boon to Multilingual Classrooms

Last week I wrote about how children being raised in bilingual households benefit from having signs added to the mix. As I pointed out, the logic is simple: When the baby, as an example, hears “leche” from Mom and “milk” from Dad and both parents pair the word they say with the MILK sign, the parents are making the job of understanding the equivalence of the two words much easier. Far from increasing a child’s confusion, it decreases confusion, thereby making the child’s task of conquering the individual languages easier.

Of course, signing has another advantage in multilingual settings, especially in child care classrooms where teachers and families speak different languages: The signs provide a common language so that toddlers who are learning the family language can still make themselves understood. Just such a situation exists at the Center for Child and Family Studies at the University of California, Davis, where graduate students from all over the world routinely enroll their infants and toddlers. In the 22 years since the Baby Signs® Program was first introduced, teachers and parents alike have been amazed at how much more smoothly daily life in the classroom proceeds. The signs have enable children who speak different languages to communicate with their teachers and each other. In one case, for example, a toddler from Israel and a toddler from Taiwan were observed reading a picture book together—with the first girl turning the pages and pointing at objects while the second girl made the appropriate signs!

Bottom line? Signing is clearly a boon to children facing the challenge of hearing multiple languages—an increasingly common occurrence these days—whether at home or in the classroom.

Visit www.babysigns.com for more information about Baby Signs® resources to help you and your baby enjoy all the benefits that signing can bring.

Happy Signing (and don’t forget to visit us on Facebook)!

Linda

Linda Acredolo, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus, UC Davis
and
Co-Founder, The Baby Signs® Program

Baby Signs Sign of the Week: MORE

The ASL sign for MORE is a Baby Signs favorite because babies can use it in so many different ways. They can use it to ask for more milk, more bubbles, or to ask to stay in the tub a little longer. One mother recently told us that her son used the more sign to ask for more time with his daddy!

Help your baby learn this sign with these Baby Signs resources:

• My Mealtime Signs DVD 14.99
• Baby Signs Starter Kit 39.95
  

Baby Signs Sign of the Week: BATH

Watch this video with your baby and learn the ASL sign for BATH.




Download your free bath sign poster

















Help your baby learn this sign with the My Bath Time Signs DVD Fun Pack. Save $5 on this fun pack with promo code: 5dollars

Thank you Amber from Building Blocks Preschool for requesting this sign!
Request a sign

Baby Signs Video Tip: Learn 3 signs to help your baby tell you what's wrong when he's feeling sick

Watch this video from Dr. Linda Acredolo and Dr. Susan Goodwyn, authors of Baby Signs and learn 3 simple ASL signs (hot, cold and hurt) that will let your baby tell you what's wrong when she's hurt or feeling sick.

Download this free Baby Signs poster with the signs for hot, cold and hurt - plus 6 more!

Baby Signs "Sign of the Week" Video: EAT

This year, Baby Signs will be posting "Sign of the Week" videos to help you learn some fun signs to teach your baby. This week's video features the American Sign Language (ASL) sign for EAT.



If you would like these videos delivered by email, you can subscribe here.
If you would like to suggest a sign for this video series, email lindae@babysigns.com.

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These Baby Signs resources will help you teach your baby the sign for EAT:

My Mealtime Signs Video

It's Time to Eat! Board Book

Baby Signs Circle Time Books Set 1

Baby Signs Flash Cards Set 1