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

Sign and Rhyme for Winter

Children of all ages love songs and rhymes that include “finger play.” Why else would “Itsy Bitsy Spider” have maintained its popularity for generation after generation of children? The nice thing is that finger play rhymes have the added advantage of helping teach babies, toddlers, and preschoolers useful signs that can enable them to communicate well beyond the context of the rhyme. Here’s a simple one that includes popular wintertime signs which, given the frigid temperatures so common this week, seems especially timely!

Winter
(To the tune of “Itsy Bitsy Spider”)

Winter brings the SNOW
Falling from the SKY,
Covering the TREES
And even YOU and I.

Winter brings the COLD
That chills us through and through.
So, let’s have tea and COOKIES
To warm up ME and YOU.

SNOW: Slowly wiggle fingers downward and to the side like falling, drifting snow.
SKY: With palm facing out, move right hand in an arc from left to right above the forehead.
TREE: Rest elbow on back of left had. Spread right fingers and rotate left several times.
COLD: “Shiver” both fists at shoulder level.
COOKIE: Place fingertips of right hand on left palm and twist as if cutting with a cookie cutter.
PRONOUNS: Point to relevant person

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

Linda

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

Make Older Sibs Part of the Signing Team

From time to time I write in this blog about the challenges parents face when they upset the family dynamics by adding another baby to the mix. In that regard, it doesn’t come as a surprise that the displaced child is vulnerable to feelings of jealousy and resentment. This week’s message is about how signing has helped ease the tensions of sibling rivalry for many families.

Teaching a baby to sign requires lots of enthusiasm and repetition. “Doggie! [SIGN] See the doggie? [SIGN] What a nice doggie! [SIGN]” The truth is that, especially at first, parents can feel a bit shy about waving their hands around as they ramp up the enthusiasm factor in their voices and faces. In contrast, preschool and school age kids often enjoy acting “silly” and, as a consequence, seldom have a problem providing the energy that makes modeling signs for babies most effective. Because babies love watching their older siblings, these pint-sized teachers do a great job. What’s more. they take great pride in having successfully taught their baby brother or sister a sign. “Watch Mom! She can sign DOG now!”

The obvious benefit here is that the baby learns more signs. But the more subtle benefit is that the older sibling feels an allegiance with the parents as part of the signing “team”—making being older (and wiser) more attractive—and thereby helping offset feelings of jealousy.

So, if you have an older sib available to help teach signs, make it fun. Suggest he/she look for pictures of target objects (e.g., dogs when teaching the DOG sign) in magazines—or even draw them—to post around the house. Soon you’ll see big sister dragging the little one over to the pictures and demonstrating the signs with great gusto. The more the merrier, we always say!

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

Linda

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

Christmas: A Great Time for Signing

We here at Baby Signs love holidays! One reason is that holidays seem inevitably to bring fun stories from parents about how their preverbal kids have used signs to share observations, memories, or requests with the big people around them. Here are two such stories about Christmas.

Elf on the Shelf. 3-year-old Natalie’s parents had introduced her to the Christmas elf right after Thanksgiving but had assumed that Natalie’s 15-month-old brother, Henry, was too young to care much about it. Just in case, though, they taught him the sign for “elf” (using thumb and forefinger to trace a pointed left ear). And it only took 4 mornings of rushing around the house with Natalie looking for the elf for Henry to get with the game. From then on, as soon as anyone walked into his bedroom to get him up in the morning, he would greet them excitedly with the sign combination WHERE + ELF and run to find Natalie to start the hunt. Thanks to the Baby Signs Program, Natalie and Henry’s parents were treated to a glimpse of sibling cooperation in place of sibling rivalry!

Santa Claus. 15-month-old Maddy had been pretty leery of the bearded man in the bright red suit inviting her to sit on his lap in the department store and had cried until her mother sat with her. From then on, whenever she saw a picture of Santa Claus she would rapidly make the sign for “afraid” and then move her open hands up and down her chest (her sign for “clothes”). Why “clothes?” Maddy’s mom quickly figured it out: “Clothes” was as close to “Claus” as Maddy could get!

These are just two of the many heartwarming signing stories in our archives. Beyond symbolizing the Yule Tide spirit, they also provide examples of the marvelous way that signs enable babies to share their worlds—whether it’s excitement, fear, or fascination.

It’s because we know how the signing experience can enrich parent child relationships that we are trying to raise funds to enable us to bring the magic of signing to low income, teen, and foster families, as well as families in the military. Please help us with a holiday gift of your own by visiting our Baby Signs Scholarship page. And if you can’t help monetarily at this time, you can still help by telling your family and friends about this worthwhile project.

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

Linda

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

Baby Signs and Early Head Start

One of the best gifts a professor can receive is when a student decides to follow in his or her footsteps. I was incredibly lucky in this way when a bright and energetic graduate student chose to focus her career on extending the signing work Dr. Susan Goodwyn and I had done at UC Davis. This student was Claire Vallotton—now Assistant Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at Michigan State University.

One direction she took was to determine if signing would have benefits for low-income families as it had with middle-income families in our own work. To this end, she conducted a study with families from an Early Head Start Program in Northern California. The positive results were published last year in the journal, Early Childhood Research Quarterly (Vol. 27, 2012, pp.401-415). Here is a brief summary in her own words of what she found:

“Mothers in the ISI [Infant Sign Intervention] group were more attuned to changes in children’ affect and more responsive to children’s distress cues. Mothers in the intervention group also viewed their children more positively, reducing parenting-related stress. This study provides evidence that a simple infant sign intervention is an effective tool to promote bidirectional communication and positive interactions for preverbal children and their parents (p. 401).”

Claire’s results provide a great backdrop for our current Baby Signs Scholarship Fund project. Through the website Rockethub, we are building a fund to provide financially-strapped groups like Early Head Start and teen and foster parent programs with Baby Signs® Program trainings and resources. We’d love to have your help! Please visit http://rkthb.co/43041 for details--and if you’re unable to contribute monetarily at this time, you can still help by telling your family and friends about the Baby Signs® Program and this worthwhile initiative.

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

Linda

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

Teaching Gratitude

Thanksgiving is a wonderful time for us to focus on the many things for which we should be grateful—from obvious things like food to eat and a warm bed at night to the little, more subtle things like birds flocking to the bird feeder or a sunny day for a winter outing. The nice thing about Thanksgiving is that the specific focus on gratitude on this particular day makes it more likely that even very young children will “sit up and pay attention.”

However, I think we all can agree that feeling grateful and expressing gratitude shouldn’t be just a one-day-a-year thing. The more difficult challenge, therefore, is how to help children understand that these behaviors are important every day. It’s an important goal because research shows that kids who feel and act grateful tend to be less materialistic, get better grades, set higher goals, complain of fewer headaches and stomach aches and feel more satisfied with their friends, families and schools than those who don't.

That’s why I was so glad to see a list of tips for how to foster gratitude in children included in an article prepared under the banner of the child-advocacy organization, Zero to Three. Here’s link: http://www.zerotothree.org/child-development/social-emotional-development/raising-a-thankful-child.html .

One thing that we here at Baby Signs can add to the list for the littlest ones is teaching the sign for “Thank You” (place fingertips on chin and make arching movement outward). It’s amazing how early and easily signing toddlers pick up this important concept!

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

Linda

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

Signing with Babies : An Easy Intervention

A new research study from Stanford University has revealed that low-income children have already fallen significantly behind in verbal vocabulary development by 18 months. In addition, Dr. Anne Fernald and her students found that this negative standing in comparison to higher-income children keeps growing. Specifically, by 2 years of age, the more affluent children had learned 30 % more words in the intervening months than had the lower-income children. One reason for the gap, research shows, is because low-income children simply hear fewer words directed at them each day—and learning a language depends on hearing that language!

Why is this early vocabulary gap a concern? One important reason is that vocabulary size at early ages is a good predictor of the ease with which children learn to read—and reading, by anyone’s estimation, is a key contributor to doing well in school. Another important reason is because verbal language is the vehicle by which children can ask questions and understand answers—also a key contributor to success academically.

Why do I bring his up in a blog about signing with babies? The answer is probably obvious to those of you who already enjoy signing with your child. Our NIH-funded research has shown that signing speeds up verbal learning, and one reason it does so, is because signing by a child pulls words from the adults around him or her, thus contributing to the overall number of words the child hears.

Think about how you would respond if your baby, during a stroll in the park, suddenly turned to you with a smile and signed “butterfly.” Would you ignore the sign or simply say “Yeah, that’s a butterfly”? Not likely. What is practically inevitable is a reply like “You’re right! That’s a butterfly! Oh look, there’s another butterfly. See how yellow they are?” etc., etc., etc. Without that sign, in contrast, parent and baby would be more likely to proceed in silence. In other words, signs enable babies to initiate conversations about things in which they are interested, and when one is interested in something, one is more likely to pay attention to what is said in return.

The larger point I’d like to make given what I’ve said above is that introducing low-income families to signing is an easy and inexpensive intervention that can help close the vocabulary gap. What’s more, signing would also bring lots of other proven benefits--like lower frustration and happier parent-baby interactions--benefits that make life easier and more satisfying to parent and baby alike.

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

Linda

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

This Little Piggy Went to Market

I recently posted in this blog a description of an experimental study I did at UC Davis to see if toddlers would use a sign to indicate that they remembered something that had happened 2 months earlier. (They did.) I certainly wasn’t surprised by our findings because I had long been hearing stories from parents indicating real life examples of babies using signs to indicate memories. Here’s one of my favorites:

A roly-poly potbellied pig was 15-month-old Brandon’s favorite exhibition at a street fair in a neighboring town he had never visited before. In fact, Brandon was so enchanted with the pig that he sued his sign for PIG (fingertip to nose) countless times during the day to let his parents know he wanted to see it again…and again…and again. His parents happily obliged, enjoying the fact that he could actually tell them what he wanted. But something even more amazing happened six weeks later. Brandon and his parents visited the town for a second time, and even though there as no street fair and not pig, Brandon suddenly began to sign PG with great glee. At first his parents were confused, but then they realized they were standing in the exact spot where the pig had been six weeks earlier! The fair may have been a distant memory to his parents, but it was clearly still vivid to him. Wow! Where his parents impressed! Not only had he remembered a pig seen long ago, but he had also remembered the exact greasy spot by the sidewalk where it had been, showing his parents just how smart their baby was!

Brandon’s is only one of many stories showing signs being used to talk about memories. Do you have examples of your own? I’d love to hear them! Send them along to me via email at info@babysigns.com (putting Baby Signs in the subject line to make sure I get it.) and maybe they’ll make it into a future posting right here!

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

Our Study Still Stands Tall!

One of our Baby Signs® Instructors called my attention last week to an article by a Speech Pathologist who was questioning our research findings that signing helps children learn to talk. She was basing her criticism on a study by researchers in England who claimed to be replicating our study but finding no positive effects when the verbal development of their signing group of babies was compared to that of their control group of babies.

Whenever such criticisms arise, the first thing I do is get my hands on the supposedly contradictory study and read it carefully. So that’s what I did, and just as I suspected, the authors didn’t have a leg to stand on! Let me outline a few of the more blatant differences between their study and ours, differences that explain why they didn’t find the language advantages we did. This post will be longer and a bit more “academic” than usual, but please bear with me. We want every parent who’s signing with a child or even contemplating doing so, to share the unwavering confidence we have in our own research.

Issue: Sample Size. The smaller the sample size (number of subjects within two groups), the harder it is to demonstrate a statistically significant difference between them, especially when the behavior in question varies dramatically from subject to subject as early language development does.
• Our study--Goodwyn, Acredolo, & Brown (2000): 32 in the Signing Group, 39 in the Control Group.
• English study: 10 in each Signing Group, 10 in the Control Group.
Conclusion: Goodwyn et al. was more likely to detect a facilitative effect, the English study more likely to miss a facilitative effect genuinely there.

Issue. Length of the study. Language development in its early stages is notoriously variable across children. The longer data collection continues, the more likely that trends will be visible.
• English study: Ceased data collection at 20 months.
• Goodwyn, Acredolo, & Brown (2000): Continued data collection well past 20 months (i.e., 24, 30, and 36 months).
Conclusion: Goodwyn et al. (2000) was more likely to discover a meaningful trend in the direction of a facilitative effect of signing.

Issue: Number of Signs Learned. To determine whether signing by infants facilitates learning to talk, the “signing group” has to have actually learned a meaningful number of signs. The larger the number of signs learned, the better equipped the study is to determine if signing makes a difference. If a baby learns only a handful of signs, one wouldn’t expect much of an effect on learning to talk.
• Goodwyn, Acredolo, & Brown (2000): Average number of signs learned = 20.3 (Range 9-61 signs)
• English study: Highest average number of signs learned across ages was 8.67 (Range 2-17 signs)
Conclusion: Goodwyn et al. was in a better position to test the effect of signing because the subjects in their study actually learned many more signs.

Why does the number of signs a baby uses matter to verbal development?

• Signs pull language from adults. Babies learn words from listening to adults. When a baby uses a sign (e.g., BIRD) upon seeing a bird, the adult responds with lots of words (“Yes! That’s a birdie! We call that a robin. See, there’s another bird. Oh, the bird flew away.”) The more signs a baby knows, the more likely this is to happen.

• Signs enable babies to pick the topic. Again, babies learn words from listening to adults. When a baby uses a sign, it starts a conversation about something the baby is interested in, thereby making it more likely the baby will listen to and learn from what the adult says. The more sign a baby knows, the more likely this is to happen.

• Signing excites babies about communicating and motivates them to move on to an even better system--words. The more signs a baby is able to use successfully to communicate, the more motivated he/she is to get better at communicating—that is, to move on to words.

• Signs increase a baby’s interest in books. Babies learn new vocabulary from reading books with parents. Because signs enable babies to be active participants in book-reading (naming pictures with signs), babies are drawn more strongly to books, thereby exposing them to more new vocabulary items. The more signs a baby knows, the more likely this is to happen.

Issue: Why did children in Goodwyn et al. (2000) learn more signs?

• Instructions to Parents. The instructions to parents clearly can affect the number of signs learned.
o Goodwyn, Acredolo, & Brown (2000): Parents were encouraged to choose whatever signs they thought their child might be interested in learning and to add new signs at any time. This freedom addresses the fact that not all babies are interested in the same things.
o Kirk et al. (2013): Parents were told to stick to a specific set of first 10, and then 20 signs no matter what their child’s interests.

• Amount of modeling. The more a sign is modeled by the parent, the more likely it is to be learned by the child.
o Kirk et al. (2013): Data indicate that parents on average modeled a sign “a few times a week to once a day.” This isn’t nearly enough!
o Goodwyn et al. (2000): Modelling rate was not reported. However, the likelihood that parents would, in fact, model signs was increased by the fact that they were given specific toys and books depicting objects represented by signs.

Given all the points I’ve outlined, I hope you can see why we disagree so strongly that this new study somehow negates our findings of a facilitative effect of signing on verbal development. And even if you hadn’t read this posting, all you would have had to do is talk to parents of preschoolers who used signs as babies to feel confident that signing is not just “okay,” but actually really good for language development.

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

Metaphorically "Speaking"

One of the most creative ways we use language is to point out similarities between things, similarities that strike us as especially informative, beautiful, or even funny. “His face was an open book.” “My love is like a red, red rose.” Such parallels are called metaphors or similes. You may be surprised to learn how early such creative begins—especially when babies know simple signs.

An airplane ride was the occasion for a particularly nice example: Fifteen-month-old Brandon was settling into his seat for his first airplane ride when he looked toward the window and began smacking his lips enthusiastically. “You see a fish?” asked his mom as she followed his gaze. But it was raining quite hard and all she could see was water dripping down the window beside his seat. Nevertheless, Brandon was insistent and continued to sign even more vehemently—fish, fish, FISH! Suddenly the mystery was solved as his mom looked at the window with different eyes. “Oh! I bet you’re telling me it looks like our aquarium at home!” said his mother in amazement. “You’re absolutely right. That’s where fishies live!” Brandon’s response? A big, satisfied grin.

Other babies have shown similar creativity with their signs: 11-month-old Cady calling the broccoli on her plate a “flower,” 18-month-old Elizabeth calling the long-hosed vacuum cleaner an “elephant,” 16-month-old Austin using the “monkey” sign to describe a particularly hairy young man, and 17-month-old Carlos describing a trip through the car wash as “wind” and “rain.”

Using signs, babies continue to teach us a valuable lesson: Bring fresh eyes to even an old place and you may be surprised by what you see!

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

I'd Love to Meet You!

I’m currently in the midst of preparing for a 2-day, in-person training in Denver on June 24-25. I love these trainings! It’s my chance to share my passion for the Baby Signs® Program “up close and personal” with others who are eager to pass along the good news to families in their own communities. The attendees come from two different groups. One group includes individuals interested in starting their own home businesses by becoming Baby Signs® Independent Certified Instructors. These folks will not only have fun giving classes, but will also have the satisfaction of earning extra income. The other group are representatives from child development related organizations and agencies who want the ability to teach Baby Signs® classes to the clients they serve. We call folks in this latter group “Agency Certified Instructors.”

These trainings always leave me with good memories—and new friends—which is why I look forward to them so much. Here’s an example: One of our attendees—who I will call Joyce—was eager to become an instructor because of her experience with her grandson, Jacob. Unfortunately, Joyce lived some 1500 miles away from Jacob and had only been able to visit right after he was born. Her daughter tried to bridge the gap with a photo of Joyce on his bureau and a routine where he would kiss the photo every night while his mom said “Goodnight Grandma. We LOVE you!”

When Jacob was about 11 months old, Joyce's daughter announced she was going to begin teaching Jacob to communicate with signs. Joyce had never heard of such a thing and was more than a little dubious. (She even admitted at the training that she had been secretly worried that using signs would slow down Jacob learning to talk, an admission which led nicely during the training into my description of our research at UCD proving the opposite is true!).

All her qualms faded away, however, one night when Joyce and her daughter inaugurated their brand new Skype connection. Joyce, of course, was eager to say “Hello” to Jacob. Jacob, always glad to get in front of the computer, cooperated by climbing into his mother’s lap and turning his eyes to the screen to see what fun game was going on. But then, in something of a double-take, his eyes grew wide as he caught sight of Joyce. He then spontaneously leaned forward, kissed the screen, smiled broadly and—much to Joyce and her daughter’s delighted amazement—signed “LOVE” by crossing his hands over his heart!

Jacob and Joyce continued after that night to communicate via Skype, with Jacob using his signs to tell her about his day. But no matter what other amazing things Jacob did with his signing, nothing could top that first memorable moment. And that’s why she was at our training. Why shouldn’t every grandma experience the magic of learning that, although she may be far away, she’s far from forgotten!

If you or someone you know is interested in learning more about our upcoming training, just click “Professional Trainings” on our home page. Hope to see you there!

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