Baby Signs Poster: ASL sign for "eat"

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

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

A Little Change of “S-Pace”

Let's take a detour from our usual focus on baby sign language. Here’s an idea that helps take advantage of the recognition memory skills—the ability to vaguely recognize something as familiar—that babies bring with them when they are born. Have you ever noticed how many habits you’ve fallen into when it comes to “putting” your baby places? For example, it’s quite likely that you routinely put your baby to bed with his head at one particular end of the crib and keep the high chair in the same lace in the kitchen. Why? Who knows! But one thing we do know is that, as a result, your baby comes to expect to see specific things when he runs his head to the right (like the window).

Those spatial relations are well established in his memory for where things happen, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. In fact, such predictability is comforting at any age. Why not, however, a least once in a while, shake things up a bit by changing his position? Now, for example, he has to find the door of his bedroom by turning the other way. By challenging your baby to rethink these spatial memories, you provide food for thought that helps him make his memories about the space around him even richer and more flexible and sophisticated.

By the way, if you'd like to hear more tips that can help you support your baby's thinking and remembering skills, join me for my 2-part webinar, Baby Minds: Nurturing the Seeds of Intellectual Development (Birth to 12 Months). Part 1 will be Weds. 10/16/13 at 6PM (Pacific Daylight Time) and Part 2 a week later (10/23/13) at the same time. (Cost $10 includes both Parts, live and/or recorded.) Click here for more info.

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

How Times Have Changed….Thank Goodness

If you want to feel proud of what you already know about how to raise an emotionally healthy child, compare your beliefs to those of a very prominent 1920’s psychologist, Dr. John Watson.

"Treat them as though they were young adults…Never hug and kiss them, never let them sit on your lap. If you must, kiss them once on the forehead when they say good night. Shake hands with them in the morning. Give them a pat on the head if they have made an extraordinary good job of a difficult task. Try it out. In a week’s time you will…be utterly ashamed of the mawkish, sentimental way you have been handling it [up to now].” (J. Watson, 1928, p. 81-82.)

Your “gut level” negative reaction to his advice is in part a product of the wealth of very good research on emotional development from 1970 onward. Thanks to modern technology (computers, video cameras, the internet), advances in our understanding of how the brain works, more complex statistical tools, and the entry of thousands of very bright, passionate young scientists into the field, we now know a lot more about child development than we our parents and grandparents did.

Here are just a few of the advances in policy toward children that would not have happened were it for not for research by hard-working, dedicated social scientists around the world:

• Fathers are now encouraged to attend the births of their babies and newborn babies often “room in” with their mothers.
• Hospitals no longer ban parents from their sick children’s sides but, instead, encourage involvement in care.
• Many hospitals employ “Child Life Advocates,” individuals trained to support hospitalized children emotionally when parents can’t be present.
• Adoption policies now advise adoption as soon as possible after birth instead of waiting until age 2 when the child’s “innate nature” has supposedly “unfolded.”
• Pediatricians recognize the importance of correcting visual and auditory problems as soon after birth as possible in order to avoid permanent deficits.
• Head Start and Early Head Start programs are making a significant difference in the lives of millions of children in terms of both emotional and intellectual development.
• Parental leave policies are becoming more and more common.
• To ensure adequate emotional and physical care, adult-infant ratios in child care facilities are a matter of law
• The Children’s Television Workshop started the trend of educational TV for children with the creation of Sesame Street.
• AND…last but definitely not least, thanks to our Baby Signs research

, there is growing recognition of the benefits of encouraging babies to use signs before they can speak!

Let’s hear it for research!

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

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

A Study of Signing and Memory

Ask a parent what signs they are most anxious for their children to learn and the answer is likely to be EAT, DRINK, MORE, and ALL DONE—the “Mealtime Signs.” There’s no doubt that these signs are important to both parent and child, but other signs are important as well. Babies use signs for all sorts of reasons besides wanting to eat or drink. One of my favorite uses of signs is to enable babies to talk about their memories.

It comes as a surprise to many parents (and many researchers) that babies and toddlers are, indeed, capable of laying down memories for salient experiences and retrieving those memories after a considerable time. We tested this capacity ourselves in our lab at the University of California at Davis a decade or so ago. Here’s what we did.

Fourteen-month-olds were invited to our lab for a study about signing. While the parent and child were waiting for the experiment to begin, they were in a room with a live mouse named “Mickey” contained in a colorful “house” cage. Not surprisingly, the children were inevitably drawn to the mouse.

When the experiment itself began, the mouse was removed and parents were asked to try teaching a set of signs to their child over the next 2 months. The signs represented different categories (e.g., requests, nouns, adjectives) and included the sign for MOUSE. The parents were told we were interested in which signs were more easily learned.

In reality, the experiment was a test of whether the babies would use a sign to indicate a memory. Specifically, when the families returned to the lab 2 months later there was no mouse in the room and our video cameras filmed the children to see if they would use the MOUSE sign to ask about it, thereby indicating that they remembered the presence of Mickey during their earlier visit.

What did we find? Yes, indeed, we saw enough of the toddlers sign MOUSE with quizzical expressions (or even combined with a WHERE? sign) that we knew we had succeeded! Toddlers can indeed remember an event that occurred 2 months earlier and can use a sign to “say” so!

So, resist the temptation to stop with the Mealtime Signs. Teach signs for lots of other things your baby might want to talk about—and remember!

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

The American Academy of Pediatrics on Media and Babies

Just last week I gave a webinar for our Baby Signs® Instructors that focused on the American Academy of Pediatrics’ position in regard to TV/Videos/DVDs for children under 2. As many responsible parents know, the AAP went on record about 2004 with a recommendation against any TV-type viewing for this young age group.

The issue is important to us here at Baby Signs because we have 6 DVDs designed to teach signs to babies. We produced these DVDs specifically for babies—that is, with very simple vocabulary and images, slow action, animated characters and real babies, and lots of repetition of the signs. What’s more, they work! Babies love them and both they and their parents learn signs from them.

Back to the AAP. What has been the result of the 2004 prohibition? Quite simply, irresponsible parents continue to expose their children to hours and hours of TV, while responsible parents feel guilty about even the smallest amount of such viewing they allow their babies. It’s become a “dirty little secret” that Mom puts on a DVD to gain 30 minutes of respite from supervising her toddler.

What many parents don’t know, however, is that the AAP relaxed its position in a 2011 up-date. In their own words, “The AAP realizes that media exposure is a reality for many families in today’s society. If parents choose to engage their young children with electronic media, they should have concrete strategies to manage it…. It is important to set limits and create balance at an early age” (2011, p. 4).

We certainly can’t argue with that! We also can’t argue with another of their observations—that many DVDs purporting to be “educational” really aren’t. That’s where the Baby Signs® DVDs shine! We know they teach signs to the babies, and we know from our federally-funded research that signing promotes language and intellectual development. In other words, we know they are truly “educational!”

In fact, the AAP itself has endorsed signing. Here’s a statement from their 2011 book, Heading Home with Your Newborn: “Infant sign language really does deliver on its promise of improved communication….It’s easy to see why so many parents swear by it, why child care centers include it in their infant and toddler classrooms, and why it has become so commonplace as an activity of daily learning” (p. 173-174).

Conclusion: While parents should, indeed, set limits on TV/DVD viewing by their babies and toddlers, at least in the case of the Baby Signs® DVDs, they need never feel guilty about gaining 30 minutes of peace and quiet by turning one on!
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

Playing Pretend: Talk about Fun!

baby sign language

Just last week in this blog I took a detour from talking about to discuss how important pretend play is to children’s cognitive development. The point I made then is that playing pretend encourages a form of mental “gymnastics;” the child is learning to keep in mind not only what he or she is doing in the present (e.g., feeding a bottle to the doll) but also that the doll represents a real baby and the pretend milk represents real milk. That’s not something a 12 month old can do, but by 18 months, the development of this kind of mental flexibility is underway.

Well, here’s another benefit of pretend play for your child’s development. Research shows that helping children engage in pretend play is an easy way for parents to support language development. In this case, what we’re talking about here is participating with your toddler or preschooler in pretend scenarios—like talking to Grandma on a toy phone, pretending to make and eat imaginary foods, playing with dolls or trucks in ways that involve imagination.

Why does not only encouraging but actually participating in this kind of play with your toddler or preschooler benefit language learning? The answer is because pretend play is language rich when parents are involved—both in terms of language you say to your child while playing and language your child says to you in response. For example, a tea party with your child might introduce new vocabulary words like cups and saucers, tea and teapot, the names of friends or new foods, etc. Or play with a toy plane might involve words like take-off, landing, pilot, the names of destinations. In addition, your questions to your child (for example, “Who are you inviting to our party?” or “Where is the plane going?”) require your child challenges your child to draw from his or her existing vocabulary to provide appropriate answers. In other words, these kinds of pretend interactions help children learn to both understand more language and to talk themselves.

So, whether your child is into tea parties or trucks, baby dolls or train tracks, make it a point to get down to his/her level (both figuratively and literally) and join the fun. Who knows? You might actually have fun exercising your own imagination!

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

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

When to Start Signing

One of the most frequent questions our network of Baby Signs® Instructors hear when they give their Parent Workshops and Sign, Say & Play® classes is “When should we start signing with our baby?” Truth is, there’s no “perfect” time to start signing. Over the years we’ve noticed three different approaches parents take to the issue of when to get started. Each has its own advantages. I will describe all three approaches so you can decide which approach will work best for your family.

Birth – 8 months
Some parents start early – at birth or sometime during the first 8 months. These parents want their babies to get lots of exposure to both signs and words from the very beginning. And they like getting into the habit of signing early on. If you know that you have the patience and the persistence to use signs yourself even though your baby is unlikely to sign back until she’s a bit older, then starting early may be a good choice for you.

8-12 months
Many parents choose to wait until their babies are 8-12 months old to start signing. The advantage of starting during this time period is that babies are closer to the age that they can start using signs themselves (usually around 10-11 months). If you like to see more immediate results, starting during this age range may be best for you.

12+ months
Some parents wait until their babies are 12-18 months old before they start using signs. Even at these later ages most babies still don’t have the words to express all the thoughts they want to share. The advantage of starting during this time is that babies are likely to learn signs more quickly, sometimes within a matter of days. With this approach, however, babies will use their signs for a shorter length of time because signs drop off quickly once babies start using more spoken words.

Finally, is it ever too late to start signing? No, not if a child is still frustrated because he or she can’t say the words needed to communicate important things. In other words, any baby or toddler who shows readiness to communicate, but cannot do so effectively with words, is a candidate for signing, and as a parent, you should not feel that it’s too early or too late to start.


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

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

Going Beyond Single Signs

There’s no doubt that a single sign—such as MORE, for example—conveys important information. But there’s also no denying that the combination MORE + COOKIE is even clearer. Babies seem to know this intuitively; that’s why as soon as they can, they begin stringing two words (or signs!) together and sentences are born.

This important intellectual milestone—the ability to put true words together—typically occurs on average around 20 months, with many babies waiting until their third year. Things happen much earlier, however, with signs. Because signs are easier to learn than words, babies can begin putting them together with each other and with single words as early as 12 months! The most useful signs in this regard are MORE which can be combined with lots of other signs or words (e.g., cookie, milk, book, bubbles, etc.) and ALL GONE which is equally combinable (e.g., with water for down the drain, food words or signs, and even animal signs when animals run or fly away).

Many signing babies, however, don’t stop with just two. Here’s a great illustration: Michelle, mom to toddler twins Jimmie and Julianna (see photo), decided to make a detour from shopping and take the kids for their first trip through the car wash. She thought they might enjoy it. Instead, they began crying hysterically, clearly terrified by the onslaught of water, brushes, and noise. That night when Daddy got home, they immediately told him all about it…with signs: CAR + BATH+ SCARED! For weeks afterward, when they would get in the car they would repeat the same “sentence” just to make sure Mom wouldn’t forget and take them there again!

Yup! Sometimes one word (or sign) alone isn’t nearly enough!

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

A Grandma By Any Other Name. . .

I’m on a kick about grandparents, probably because I’ve been able to spend lots of time with my nearing 4-years-old grandchildren. Of course, I’m too young to be a grandmother—aren’t we all? Fortunately, the grandmother image I grew up with has slowly given way to a new view. When I was a child, grandmothers, including my own, were typically frail women with white hair drawn up into a bun, solid black laced-up old lady shoes, and flowered dresses about as form fitting as a garage around a car. Nowadays, grandmothers are vibrant women still right in the thick of things, with or without gray hair—but very seldom in a bun!

One thing, however, hasn’t changed and never will. Grandmothers of any era relish the first time a grandchild reaches out with a smile and murmurs some version of her name, be it “gamma,” “mimi,” or “nana.” The wait for this memorable event is often long—sometimes not until a child is over 2 years old—because learning to say words is such a struggle for young children.

Fortunately, there’s a way around this frustration and the need for guessing. The solution is helping babies and toddlers use signs to communicate with those they love. And included in these sign vocabularies for many children are signs for grandpa and grandma that function exactly like names. Here are some fun examples from our files:

--13-month-old Claire used a rocking motion as her name for Grandma because Grandma frequently rocked her in a rocking chair.

--12-month-old Kai picked up on the way his Grandpa always threw him up in the air and began raising his arms up high whenever his grandpa arrived—or even when he saw a picture of him.

--15-month-old Sadie would enthusiastically do her version of the ASL sign for Grandma (thumb of open hand on chin, arched forward two times) when Grandma entered the house.

Being a grandparent is one of the sweetest experiences on earth, and now it’s easy to make it sweeter still. Start signing with your grandbabies today and enjoy the sense of connection and love that being able to communicate brings.

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

What Exactly Does “Ba” Mean?!

I recently ran into an old friend who was out shopping with her 20-month-old granddaughter. I was delighted to hear that little Laney had taken our Baby Signs® Sign, Say & Play® class and been a great signer since age 10 months, and equally delighted to hear that words had started to appear in her repertoire as well. According to Grandma, however, most of these words sound pretty much the same, and although Mom and Dad can often figure them out based on context, it's a real challenge for Grandma. For example, she told me, Laney currently says something like “ba” for “baby,” “ball,” and “bottle.” What helps enormously, Grandma, said with a smile, is that Laney almost always combines the sign for what she's talking about with the word, thereby clarifying her message! So the sign for BABY accompanies "ba" in some cases, while the sign for BALL does so in others, etc.

Aha! A great example of how signing still has a role to play even when words begin! Instead of looking at their babies in frustration and listing all the possibilities, adults can correctly interpret these early words ( “Oh, baby! You see the baby!” ). Using signs in this way to clarify what they are trying to say is an advantage of baby sign language that is often overlooked—until a parent or grandparent very gratefully sees it in action. It turns out to be important because receiving positive attention for trying to talk is an important incentive that motivates children to keep working hard to add new words.

Just think how discouraging it is to be struggling to be understood in a foreign country when you can’t say the words quite right. It’s enough to make you want to retreat in silence to your hotel room! Having signs to help them clarify their messages keeps babies from feeling this way so that instead of retreating into silence, they become more and more excited about learning to talk.

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 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

2-Month-Old Problem Solvers!

I’m taking a detour from talking about baby sign language to describe one of my favorite findings from the research literature on infant development.

Did you know that even 2-month-old babies are eager “problem solvers?” This posting provides two examples of how psychologists have determined this is so.

One way is illustrated in the photo above of my grandson, Nate, who quickly figured out that he could make the bells over his head ring by shaking his hand. He then did so purposefully and repeatedly.

Here’s another example. In a classic study, a Hungarian researcher named Hanus Papousek challenged 2-month-olds to figure out how to get a red light to come on. The babies learned the answer quickly. All it took was a slight turn of their head to the right. But that was far from the whole story.

The babies seemed thrilled at first, enthusiastically turning their heads to the right and watching the light appear. But it didn’t take long before the babies began to grow bored. At this point they slowed down, turning their heads only every now and then, as if checking to see if they were still in control of the light.

Having observed this periodic checking, Papousek surreptitiously changed the “rule” so that suddenly the babies had to turn their heads to the left to get the light to come on. As soon as one of those periodic checks revealed that a head turn to the right wouldn’t work anymore, the babies knuckled dlown and figured out the new solution to the problem. But once they had discovered that turning to the left was now the key, and once they had practiced it a number of times, they started to lose interest again.

At this point, Papousek challenged them once again, surreptitiously changing the rule again to require a head turn to the right followed by a head turn to the left. No problem! A bit of trial and error and the babies figured it out, repeated it a number of times, and then got bored again.

Here’s the point. What was actually motivating these babies to work so hard? It obviously wasn’t fascination with the red light itself or they wouldn’t have grown bored so easily. No, what kept these babies involved—even at the tender age of 2 month—was the challenge of figuring out how to get the light to come on! They truly were enjoying the experience of solving a problem and the feeling of having control over at least a tiny portion of their world!
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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

A Story Illustrates an Important Advantage of Signing

One of my favorite personal Baby Signs® stories involves my son, Kai (who you see in the photo below with me way back in 1987 doing his sign for airplane--an indication of how long I've been involved with signing). We were in the mall; he was 12 months old and in his stroller as we passed by store after store. Suddenly, he turned around in his stroller, smiled, and did his sign for “crocodile” – clapping his palms together like the jaws of a crocodile. “You see a crocodile—in the mall?” I asked, looking around in vain for such a critter. I knew to trust him, though. He clearly was trying to tell me about something he saw. I let him out of his stroller, and he immediately toddled over to the window of the store we had just passed—a men’s store with racks of men’s shirts in the window. Where was the crocodile? You probably guessed it! The IZOD insignia on the shirts!

I’m telling this story to illustrate a point about why signing with babies speeds up language development.

Imagine yourself in my situation. Do you think I just calmly said “Oh yeah, that’s a crocodile,” plopped him back in his stroller, and went on my merry way? No! I was flabbergasted that he had seen those crocs from his stroller and thrilled that he wanted to tell me about them—so I excitedly flooded him with words like: “You’re right! Those are crocodiles! There are lots of crocodiles! They’re like the crocodile in your book! You are the smartest baby in the world!” (Probably not my exact words, but close enough.)

His use of the sign resulted in him hearing lots and lots of words that he otherwise would not have heard—and who picked the topic? He did! Think about it. We all pay more attention to things we are personally interested in, and that’s true for babies and toddlers, too. When we join them in attending to what they are focused on, chances are much greater that they will listen closely to what we’re saying—and learn! In fact, we know from research done at Emory University that this is true for verbal words even when signs are not involved: children are more likely to learn words they hear while the parent is talking about something the children have chosen.

The magic thing about signs is that it enables babies to pick the topic so much earlier than if they had to wait for words to come along. We shouldn’t be surprised, therefore, that signing gives babies such a lovely jumpstart in learning to understand words and to talk.

Happy Signing

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

Linda

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

Signing: A Priceless Gift for One Little Girl

Ever hear someone say, “Oh, signing---that’s just parlor tricks for babies. You say a word and they produce the sign. How is that any different from a dog who rolls over when you say the words?” Whenever I hear comments like this I know that that person has been around a signing baby enough to see Baby Signs in action. So, what do I say in response? I tell them the following story:

Heather, a Baby Signs instructor in Iowa, had a baby daughter who started using signs at about 10 months and became quite the signer by 14 months. It was at this point that the baby began to have what looked like severe temper tantrums. She would flail her arms and legs and twist her head back and forth, often falling to the floor. When Heather sought help, she was simply told that it was probably just the terrible-twos starting early. But then Heather noticed that each time her daughter had one of these “spells,” she would tap her index fingers together—the sign for HURT. That’s when Heather knew something serious was wrong—and she was right. Heather insisted that she see a pediatric neurologist who discovered that her daughter had Childhood Epilepsy! Fortunately, because it was diagnosed extremely early, she escaped any long term neurological problems and has done so well that she was spared long term medication.

Certainly doesn’t sound like “parlor tricks” to me! How about you?

Happy Signing! (And don't forget to visit us on Facebook!)

Linda

Linda Acredolo, Ph.D.

Co-Founder, the Baby Signs Program (the original and onbly research-based sign language program for hearing babies)

and

Professor Emeritus, UC Davis

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