Stranger Anxiety: A Holiday Hazard

Some of my most enduring memories of Christmas with my own children were the annual visits with Santa. Born in the fall and still babes-in-arms by Christmas, their first experiences with Santa were uneventful. Things had changed dramatically, however, by Christmas #2--when the kids were about 15 months old. They would have nothing to do with the jolly old man! I was disappointed but hardly surprised. They were both at that second Christmas at the height of what is called “Stranger Anxiety.”

As I reflect back some 25 years to those early experiences with kids and Santa, it got me thinking again about Stranger Anxiety as a developmental phenomenon that kids of any generation go through. It may be easy to deal with Santa by simply avoiding him, but it’s not so easy to deal with the anxiety that arises when new relatives visit during the holidays or when a new caregiver is introduced. To refresh my memory of how to deal with Stranger Anxiety, I got down a copy of the book I co-authored with Dr. Susan Goodwyn, Baby Hearts: A Guide to Giving Your Child an Emotional Head Start, looked the term up in the index and, sure enough, found a list of tips that can help.

Insist that people approach slowly and smoothly. Strangers, no matter how well intentioned, who swoop into a young child’s space end up overwhelming his/her with feelings of vulnerability. Because feeling overwhelmed is the exact opposite of feeling in control, the result is fear.

Provide a prop. Providing the stranger with your child’s favorite toy or an attractive new toy is another helpful ploy because it works to distract the child from the newness of the visitor and defines him or her as having something positive to contribute.

Teach the stranger favorite signs. If your child is using signs from our Baby Signs® Program, as we fervently hope is the case, prepare the stranger ahead of time by teaching him or her a few of your child’s current favorites. We all feel safer with people who share our language!

Enthusiastically introduce the stranger. Get into the habit of introducing people to your child with expressions of sincere delight. This may sound odd if your baby is very young, but even by 4 months babies are sensitive to facial expressions and tone of voice—and by 10 months they are purposefully monitoring these emotional cues to judge what their own reaction should be.

Be patient and understanding! Stranger anxiety is a normal part of development and actually indicates the onset of important advances in intelligence and memory. It means that children are truly thinking about what’s happening, comparing faces with those they remember, and figuring out how to regulate their own emotions—in this case by avoiding the stranger. If you can think of Stranger Anxiety as a manifestation of progress in your child’s development, it will be easier to be patient.

Stranger Anxiety is one of the earliest and most universal forms of fear that young children experience. If you're interested in what some other common fears are and tips for dealing with them, check out Chapter 7 of our book, Baby Hearts, “Monsters and Meanies: Addressing Fear and Anxiety.”

Happy Holidays (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

An Easy “Landscape” for Your Crawler

Most readers of this blog know me from my book Baby Signs with Dr. Susan Goodwyn. Fewer of you may know that the two of us have written two other books for parents, Baby Minds (about how parents can support intellectual development from Birth to 3) and Baby Hearts (the same for emotional development). The following builds on tips from Baby Minds.

It’s usually between 8 and 12 months that babies begin to move themselves around—crawling excitedly from here to there and back again. This is really the stage of “Baby on the move!” Their motivation, though, comes not just from the ability to reach an object or gain a new viewpoint on the world around them. They also really enjoy the process itself—the challenge of making their bodies move the way they want them to—and the challenge of getting better and better and faster and faster at doing so. In adult terms, they take great pleasure in the trip itself, not just the destination.

And here’s an easy and safe way to make crawling even more fun—as well as more challenging. Simply put three or four sofa or chair pillows on the floor for your baby to climb up, down, and around. Make sure they are not too tall and relatively firm (rather than squishy soft) so that your baby can move on them fairly easily. You might even create tunnels by draping light weight fabric across two piles of pillows or over a low table or between two chairs. Of course, it goes without saying that you should always remain close enough to supervise.

What a great way to provide a new “landscape” for your baby to explore—one that’s available even on the rainiest, snowiest days!

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 One Child Started a World-Wide Movement!

Not too long ago I did an interview with a PARENTS Magazine writer about the origins of the baby sign language movement. She was surprised to hear what a personal story it was. That made me realize that others might be similarly interested in how it all got started. So here goes!

Most everyone reading this blog is familiar with our company, Baby Signs, Inc. and the fact that we produce signing resources for families. Many of you also know that we have a network of instructors who teach our Baby Signs® workshops and classes. (By the way, there’s a rumor going around via social media that we have a “multi-level” sales model. Not true! It’s just the those of us here at the Home Office in Vacaville , CA and our dedicated team of nearly 900 Baby Signs® Independent Certified Instructors, each one only answerable to his/herself.)

What many of you may not know is that the Baby Signs idea started on one specific day in 1982 when one individual baby (my 12-month-old daughter--see photo above) made up a sign for “flower.” We were out in the garden when she pointed across the yard to a rose bush, turned to me, and sniffed repeatedly. Now, as I’m fond of saying, it doesn’t take a nuclear scientist to understand what she was trying to convey! I said, “Oh do you want to see the flowers?” and took her over to smell them. What I then noticed was that she continued to use the same sniffing gesture all day to label flowers wherever she saw them—on the wall paper, her pajamas, the dining table—and that night I wrote in my journal that she had “done the cutest thing today.”

After that I started watching her more closely and noticed her making up other “signs”—like blowing for “hot” and rubbing index fingers together for “spider” (from “Itsy Bitsy Spider”). I told my colleague and best friend Susan Goodwyn about what she was doing and together we began modeling other common sense signs for things and recording both her signing behavior and her verbal development. All this data gathering resulted in our first academic journal article in 1985 (it takes a long time to get things published!): “Symbolic gesturing in language development: A case study. Human Development, 28, 40-49. (This article, as well as many of our other pivotal research reports, is available in its entirety on our website (www.babysigns.com). Just click on PARENTS and then RESEARCH.)

That was the beginning of Susan’s and my 25 years of research on the subject of signing with babies, culminating in a longitudinal study, supported by the National Institutes of Health, of the effects of signing on verbal development. With the positive results of this study in hand, we finally went public in 1996 with the first edition of Baby Signs: How to Talk With Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk and the avalanche of other books and programs began. Believe it or not, if you search amazon.com for “baby sign language books” today, you’ll get 561 entries!

Who said a single child can’t change the world?!

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 Kids to Say "Thanks"

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 Thanksgiving to one and all! (And don't forget to follow us on Facebook!)

Linda

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

Birth of the Green-Eyed Monster

In last week’s blog posting, veering a long way from baby sign language, I talked about why it’s understandable that an older sibling might be jealous of the addition of a new baby to the family. This week I want to turn the tables a bit and ask, “What about the baby?”. Won’t there come a point when the baby begins to resent having to share Mommy with the older child? In other words, when does the traditional green-eyed monster called jealousy appear on the scene?

One answer comes from a clever study by developmental researchers Sybil Hart, Tiffany Field, Claudia Del Valle, and March Letourneau that tested 12-month-old babies under two conditions. In one, moms were asked to ignore their children while looking through a picture book. In the other, still ignoring their babies, moms were given a life-size baby doll to cuddle. If simply being ignored is what annoys babies this age, then both situations should be equally upsetting. But that’s not what happened. Instead, these year-old children were significantly more distressed about the doll than the book, suggesting that they specifically resented seeing another “baby” get the cozy comfort of Mommy’s lap.

Looks like sibling rivalry is a two-way street from pretty early on!

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

So, A New Baby is On the Way!

Bear with me as I stray once again from baby sign language and talk about a different parenting issue that many young families face. It’s one that Susan Goodwyn and I address in our book, Baby Hearts.

So, you’re expecting another baby! Wonderful! But creeping into your thoughts at the good news is concern over how the upcoming blessed event will be received by your older child whose place as “Baby” is being usurped.

Although most second-time parents are aware that there may be jealousy, many also assume that reassurances about “enough love for both” should solve the problem. The fact that it doesn’t may actually strike some parents as unreasonable and selfish.

It was in response to such attitudes that A. Faber and E. Mazlich, authors of Siblings without Rivalry, came up with a role-playing strategy that I love and have adapted a bit to share with you below. They suggested that parents put themselves in the shoes of the wife in the following scenario:

HUSBAND: I’ve got a wonderful surprise for you! Now, you know I love you very, very much, honey, don’t you? And you know you’ve brought great joy into my life, right?

WIFE: I love you too!

HUSBAND: Well, here’s the surprise. I’ve enjoyed having my own little wife so much that I thought it would be nice for all of us to have another wife in the family! Won’t that be wonderful?

WIFE: What?!

HUSBAND: Just think about it. You’ll have another wife to play with and maybe even share your room with. And because you’re such a good wife and know so much more than she will about everything, you can help me take care of her. The three of us can go on walks together and read books together…and everything! We’ll all be one, big happy family! Won’t that be fun?

WIFE: Hmph!

Now, don’t you have more sympathy than before for kids who are getting this “wonderful” news? It’s natural for them to be upset and it will take time, love, and plenty of patience to to bring them around. (TIP: Some of you may be lucky enough to find a Baby Signs instructor offering our "Sibling Class" in your area. Visit www.babysigns.com and click on "Find a Class.")

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
g rivalry

Lots to Cheer About in the Latest AAP Recommendations about TV

Once again the news is full of reports about a statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) about TV and children under 2. To find out exactly what the new policy statement says, I bypassed reporters’ interpretations and went straight to the AAP article itself in the latest issue of the journal Pediatrics. What I found there is actually very good news for the Baby Signs® Program in regard to our hugely popular and very effective signing DVDs.

POINT 1: The AAP’s is not banning the use of video programming for children under 2, only urging parents to be cautious about amount and selective about content.

“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” (p. 4).

In regard to the need for caution, they make the excellent point that “screen-based” programming (including computers, smart phones, etc.) can be addicting at any age and that it’s up to parents to see that their kids are not losing out on other important experiences like interactions with parents and sibs, being read to, and playing independently.

POINT 2: Much of what is advertized as “educational” for this age group really is not. A main point here is that children under 2 can’t process information very well and, therefore, “are more likely to learn from a live presentation than from a televised one” (p. 2). But here’s the good news for our DVDs. They do cite an exception from the research literature—a 2007 study published in the journal Developmental Psychobiology showing that 12 to 21 month old children were just as likely to imitate specific actions demonstrated via videotape (versus demonstrated by a live person) when “the screen demonstration repeats several times” (AAP, p. 2).”

Hmm… actions that are repeated. Sound familiar? That’s exactly what our signing DVDs do in spades! They aren’t trying to teach abstract concepts like numbers or letters. They demonstrate specific actions (signs) not just several times but many times. So, not only do we know from our own and hundreds of parental reports that our DVDs teach signs, but the AAP provides an independent research foundation for that conclusion.

And don’t forget the fact that being able to sign has been proven (through our federally-funded research) to promote language and cognitive development as well as enrich parent-child interactions. So, if any video programming can be justifiably called “educational,” it’s ours!

CONCLUSION. In my opinion, the AAP is doing a service by warning parents about the potential negative effects of unregulated “screen” time and unsubstantiated claims of material being “educational.” But that’s only part of the story. They are also providing support for our position that if parents need a bit of time to fix dinner, fold the laundry, or even just relax, they can feel very comfortable choosing a Baby Signs® DVD to entertain and educate their baby!

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

Take Advantage of Halloween!

Although it’s hard to believe given that it feels like yesterday was Easter, Halloween is just around the corner. If you’re like my step-son and daughter-in-law, you’re as excited by the chance to dress up your little ones as they are! Nate, now 2 ½ , is going to be Buzz Lightyear and his twin sister Olivia is going to be Ariel from "The Little Mermaid." As the photos show, Grammy and Papa got a preview last night. What's more, there’s no doubt that, come next Monday night, the video camera will come out to record the festivities.

Which brings me to one of my favorite parenting tips. The development of good memory skills is critical to all aspects of learning. In fact, that’s what “learning “is all about—the ability to remember facts, ideas, and skills encountered in the past. Research has shown that parents contribute mightily to how early and easily children begin to hone their memory skills.

Here’s an easy and enjoyable way to support your child’s progress in this critical area. Make use of your family video footage! Whether it’s Halloween, a birthday, or just a precious moment at home, don’t just leave these recordings on the shelf to enjoy years later. Instead, watch them with your child right away. By watching video footage of special events in your child’s life soon after the recordings are made, you are providing a platform for conversations with your child about the past and providing images he or she can use to reconstruct events. It’s just such conversations with parents about the past that research shows help children begin to tie their own memories into cohesive wholes. Besides, it’s lots of fun! Every child enjoys seeing him or herself on the screen.

So, break out the popcorn, enjoy a fun time at the movies with your child, and delight in the fact that you’re helping your child hone memory skills that will serve him or her well for years to come.

Just a simple tip to make supporting your child’s intellectual development a bit easier and more fun!

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

Why Children’s Fears Increase in the 2nd Year

Although signing with babies is my passion, I also enjoy sharing other insights about development. Here's an example from Baby Hearts, my book co-authored with Dr. Susan Goodwyn.

Along with cake and ice cream, a child’s first birthday brings with it a not so nice gift – a significant increase in the number of things that make a child afraid. Why the increase in fear after the first birthday? Much of the responsibility can be traced to changes in the child’s mental skills. Unfortunately, however, these changes aren’t balanced by nearly enough knowledge of how the world actually works! The result is fear of things that you and I know from experience aren’t likely to happen – like getting sucked up by vacuum cleaners or flushed down the toilet. We may know the laws of mechanics that make such things impossible, but our toddlers and preschoolers clearly don’t! Here are some of the other reasons why the list of fears inevitably grows longer between years 1 and 5:

• The wonderful – and not so wonderful – world of imagination. Towards the middle of the second year, the toddler brain begins to be able to do something that sets humans apart from other animals – create ideas and images that have little if any basis in reality and then ponder those ideas and images at will. This is a fancy way to say that children begin to use their imaginations. The good news is that this ability enables them to have fun pretending to be firemen or ballerinas; the bad news is that this same ability enables them to imagine bogey men and monsters.

• What’s Real and What’s Not? Toddlers face a particularly interesting challenge when it comes to distinguishing fantasy from reality. Their new awareness of their own thoughts and dreams doesn’t come with an automatic recognition that these are “all in the head.” Ask your toddler if you’d be able to watch his dream if you came into his room while he was dreaming and he’s likely to say “yes.” Very young children think of their dreams as taking place in real time and space, which is one reason they find nightmares so up-setting and can’t dismiss the image in their head of that same monster under the bed.

• Down Memory Lane. Very young infants live by necessity “in the here and now.” The downside of this is that they don’t get to relive the happy moments of their short lives – the delightful games of tickle, the warm and snuggly moments in mom’s arms, the giddy back and forth of their swing. The upside, however, is that very young infants also can’t remember the scary moments. Unfortunately, toddlers and preschoolers, due to much improved memory capacities, definitely can! This means that a single harrowing experience with a dog, clown, or merry-go-round can haunt them for days, weeks, months, or even years to come.

• A Different Perspective. It also doesn’t help matters that toddlers are so little. To them, the barking Labrador Retriever isn’t just a dog; it’s a dog the size of a horse! And the room full of strange relatives doesn’t just have lots of new folks in it; it’s full of people who tower over the child. Weaving through all the legs – even holding on to Mommy’s hand – is an intimidating journey!

• On the Go. One final reason toddlers and preschoolers are more vulnerable than infants to developing fears is the simple fact that they get around better! Not much scary can happen when you’re confined to a highchair or crib, but let your world expand to include the yard, the park, and the neighborhood, and the chances of encountering something unexpected and scary increase markedly.

The good news is that knowing signs can help toddlers communicate their fears to the adults around them. The AFRAID sign is the most obvious, but not the only candidate. For example, when AFRAID is paired with the sign for DOG the message is clear: that four-legged thing ain’t no friend of mine!

I actually speak from experience on this point. One night when my son Kai was about 15 months old, he suddenly began screaming when I tried to put him in his bed. I was nonplussed – until Kai did the sign for SPIDER. Then I remembered. That morning when I had lifted him out of bed, a big black spider had landed on his arm and he’d been both startled and upset. I had forgotten all about the incident – but he clearly hadn’t. The good news was that thanks to the sign, I knew what the problem was and together we looked through all the bedclothes. Finding no spider, Kai was reassured and settled down to sleep. (The bad news is that, even at age 25, Kai is still phobic about spiders!)

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

Lay a Foundation for Reading with the "Odd-One-Out" Game

While it’s true that more and more information is available these days in audio and video form, reading is still an immense part of how we all—including children—learn about the world around us. That’s why it’s important to help kids in any way we can to conquer this essential skill. As I’ve mentioned before in these tips, one important pre-reading skill that’s easy and fun to work on is “Phonemic Awareness.” What this fancy term refers to is the simple recognition that words are made up of separate sounds—for example, the word CAT is made up of the separate sounds “C + A+T. Because the job of letters is to represent these separate sounds, being able to recognize that words are divisible in this way is obviously an important component of learning to read.

In a previous tip I talked about how introducing children to rhyming words through nursery rhymes and poems is an easy way to help them develop this awareness. Here’s why. Words rhyme precisely because they share their ending sounds but not their beginning sounds and poems help make these words and their sound similarities and differences stand out so children are more likely to notice. For example, hearing the words HILL and MILL in close proximity draws attention to the fact that they begin differently but end the same.

Here’s a simple game you can play with your 3- to 5-year-old to take advantage of the power of rhyming to promote phonemic awareness. It’s a form of what we call an “odd-one-out” game in which you say three words, only two of which rhyme, and ask your child “Which one doesn’t belong.” For example, you might say “Cat, Hat, Dog” where the one that doesn’t belong is “Dog.” Or “Juice, Boat, Goat,” where the one that doesn’t belong is the first word, “Shoe.” After a while, your child may even be able to reverse roles and give you the list of words to decide the “odd-one-out.”

This is a great game to play anywhere--while riding in the car, standing in line at the grocery store, or waiting at a restaurant for your food to arrive. And each time you play it, you can enjoy the fact that you’re not only having fun, but also providing practice that will help your child develop the important pre-reading skill of phonemic awareness.

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

Surprise! 3-Month-Old “Problem Solvers”

Did you know that many of our Baby Signs® Instructors are also On the Grow™ Educators? That means they are certified to teach classes from our Birth to Five “On the Grow™” curriculum. One of those classes—my personal favorite—is called “Baby Minds” and is designed to help parents of infants younger than 6 months realize that babies are a lot smarter than they look. (Many of the activities are taken from Susan's and my book, Baby Minds: Brain-Building Games Your Baby Will Love.)

For example, research shows that babies come into this world not only capable of solving problems but eager to do so. They want to figure things out. And here’s an easy way to provide your baby with just such an opportunity as early as 2-3 months.

If you’re like most new parents, you have mounted a mobile on your baby’s crib so she has something to watch move while she’s laying on her back. But just watching the mobile move the normal way is so passive! All you need to do in order to present your baby with a problem to solve is to take a soft ribbon, tie one end to an arm of the mobile and the other end to your baby’s foot. What happens the next time your baby moves her foot? The mobile moves too! At first your baby won’t understand the connection, but before long she will be purposefully kicking up a storm—and having a great time!

And once your baby understands about kicking that foot, change the ribbon to the other foot—or a hand—and, Voila!, an exciting new problem to solve!

Of course, it doesn’t have to be a mobile. It could be as simple as attaching aa hand to a set of bells you hold over the baby as you see in the photo above.

I played this game with my own son, who’s now 25, and he loved it. To see how long he would stay entertained by moving the mobile, I set up a video camera and just let it roll. The answer? He stayed content making the mobile move for 45 minutes! An astounding amount of time for a 2 month-old baby—and testimony to how much fun babies figuring out how to make things happen in their world.

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

“You Want 'Goodnight Moon' Again?!”

Once again I'm going to detour from my usual preoccupation with baby sign language to talk about a phenomenon that is pretty universal during the first years of life. Here goes!

How many times can one person read the same storybook without going crazy? If you’re under age 5, the sky’s the limit. Or so it seems to weary parents who can be overheard at bedtime pleading with their children, “You want Goodnight Moon AGAIN? But that’s 14 nights in a row!” And then there are the occasions when sleepy parents make sly attempts to shorten the bedtime story just a little but are caught up short when a plaintive voice protests “No Mama! Where comb ‘n brush!?” What’s a parent to do?

The answer is simple. Grin and bear it. Why? Because although reading the same story over and over again may seem to be an imaginative form of parent abuse, your child’s motivation is really a positive one. In asking for the same book again, your child is really eagerly awaiting another lesson in memory development. Children between one and four years are programmed to work hard at practicing remembering things, whether it’s the plot of a certain book or video or the order of events when they take a bath or get dressed in the morning. By reading the same story more than once, you’re providing more chances for them to learn the “script.” They love the challenge and then the pleasure of being able to predict what’s going to happen on the next page. And as the sleepy parent reading “Goodnight Moon” learned, pretty soon your child will be able to fill in the blanks as well as, if not better than, you can!

So, yes, it’s important to read the same books over and over. Doing so is actually another easy way to support your child’s intellectual development.

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

From Signs to Speech—Inevitable!

Despite our federally-funded research evidence showing that signing babies actually learn to talk sooner (See Research page on our Baby Signs website for details), some parents still worry that their babies will be too content with signing to do the work of learning to talk. Below are four reasons why children are, in fact, eager to make the transition:

New Places to Go: As toddlers get older and more mobile, they are more and more likely to wander away from direct eye-to-eye contact with parents—around corners, behind chairs, up and down the slide. Signs, which require being able to see each other, are much less effective that words in such situations. You simply can’t shout a sign from around the bend!

New Faces to Meet: Greater mobility and maturity also mean that children are destined to meet more and more new people along the way—people who engage them in conversations and most likely don’t know signs. They may be new playmates at daycare or cashiers at the grocery store or friendly parents at the park. Conversing with these folks requires words.

New Games to Play: Getting older also means that children become increasingly attracted to activities that keep the hands busy—like finger paints, crayons, puzzles, ladders to climb, bikes to ride. Signing in such situations is much less convenient that words!

New Things to Say: To a 15-month-old, simply telling you that he sees a butterfly is a magnificent feat—and one easily accomplished with a simple sign. However, as children grow intellectually, gathering more and more information about the world around them, the ideas they want to get across become much more complicated. Except for children whose parents are capable of teaching them to be fluent in ASL, complex ideas and observations are beyond the power of simple signs to express. Words are the perfect substitute.

So, don’t worry about the transition to speech; your child will be eager to move on to words. In fact, if you’re like many parents, you’ll actually be a bit sad to see the signs slowly drift away one by one as an onslaught of words takes over!

(By the way, these two photos show my son, now 25 years old) signing "airplane" and "Where is it?" as a baby. He signed a ton and then, at 19 months, suddenly burst forth with 67 words!)

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

Why Kids Love Animals

Ever wonder why children, even babies, are so drawn to animals? Even linguists have long been aware of this attraction. Turns out that more than a third of the average baby’s earliest words are names for animals with “cat,” “dog,” “duck,” and “bunny” leading the pack. What’s more, we see a similar trend among signs.

But why do children find animals fascinating? Is it because so many children’s books feature animals, thereby inspiring the preference? Or, to turn this theory on its ear, do so many books feature animals because the preference already exists? It seems clear to me that the latter is the case. I simply can’t imagine that inundating a young child with books about pieces of furniture instead of animals would create a passion for chairs and tables that could rival that for dogs and cats!

What lies behind kids’ attraction to animals is really quite simple, researchers tell us. As young babies begin looking around their world, they are automatically attracted to things that move, are brightly colored, and are easy to see. They are fascinated by things that make interesting noises, are capable of interacting with them and are unpredictable in what they do and how they behave. The most obvious items that fit this description are other people. And, in fact, from the day they are born, babies are absolutely fascinated by the faces and voices of the people around them.

But humans aren’t the only things in the world that meet these criteria. Animals do, too. In sharp contrast to even the most exciting mechanical toy, an animal moves itself around, behaves in unpredictable ways, and makes funny noises. What’s more, many of the animals children see at close range have the added advantage of providing what researchers call “contact comfort”—or what most people call being soft and cuddly! In other words, babies find animals about as far from boring as things can be without being human.

So, whatever you do, don’t stop your signing efforts with signs for “eat,” “milk,” more,” and other mealtime signs. Your baby want to let you know about what is particularly fascinating in the about the world around him or her—and that definitely means signs for animals will be winners!

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’s the News About TV and Babies?

One of the easiest and most enjoyable ways to teach babies important signs is by watching our Baby Signs® DVDs. ( In fact, a coupon for 20% off a complete set of our 6 theme-based DVDs—plus a bonus video dictionary DVD for parents--is this week’s “Weekly Wow.”) But are DVDs good for babies?

Perhaps you’ve heard the concern voiced by pediatricians that babies under age 2 should watch no TV at all. This strong prohibition was issued a decade ago by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) as a safeguard against parents who expose their very young children to hours and hours of general, non-educational programming, using the TV simply as a babysitter that keeps them occupied and happy for long stretches of time without providing any lasting benefits.

Since that time, more and more research studies have revealed that the content of what’s watched matters a great deal. In fact, educational programming specifically designed for babies and toddlers—especially programming with clear, simple language, that elicits their participation—can have positive effects on their development. This includes shows like “Dora the Explorer” and “Blue’s Clues” that research indicates can actually speed up language development.

It’s also critical that programming for babies avoids the frantic pacing and complex imagery typical of shows for older children and adults. In fact, new research has shown that even having adult fare playing in the background tends to disrupt infant play behavior.

It was with all these factors in mind that Dr. Susan Goodwyn, Co-founder of the Baby Signs® Program, and I created our Baby Signs® DVDs. The components, chosen to attract the attention of even the youngest audience, include simple animated characters called our “DiaperDoodles™,” real babies signing, BeeBo® our Baby Signs Bear, and funny monkey puppets. They model the signs slowly and repeatedly, thereby giving babies lots of time to notice and even practice the actions. In addition, the language is extremely simple, encouraging the baby to sign along, and the pace is very slow. And best of all, these DVDs actually teach something shown by research to be useful—signing!

Of course, everything in moderation is still the best advice. We would never advocate hours and hours of even our own DVDs! And whenever possible, it’s always good for parents and babies to enjoy our DVDs together. We just hope that well-meaning parents understand that slipping our DVDs video into their daily routines with their babies is much more likely to help than hinder their development!

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

Pretend Play: Talk-about Fun!

Just last week in this blog I took a detour from baby sign language to talk about 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

There's More to Pretending Than Meets the Eye

Without little Julia (see photo) coming to staff meeting each week with her mom, Bonita, I wouldn’t have nearly as much to write! These days, between Julia (now 17 months old) and my twin grandchildren (now 27 months old), it seems I’m never at loss for tidbits about development that are fun to pass along to parents and grandparents. These messages may not all be relevant to signing—my main passion—but I’m hoping they are useful just the same.

This week’s tip was inspired by this photo I snapped at last week’s meeting. As you can see, Julia is intent on feeding her baby doll. What this represents is an important advance in cognitive development that starts sometime early in the second year—the ability to “pretend,” also known as imagination.

What’s the big deal? If you think about it, feeding pretend milk to a pretend baby requires Julia to insert an extra mental step in comparison to an equivalent real situation where she is drinking milk herself or tipping her bottle up for Mom to have a sip. In the case of the baby doll she is also keeping in mind that the baby doll represents or symbolizes a real baby and the pretend milk represents or symbolizes real milk. How do we know she’s pretending? She’s clearly not surprised or upset when no milk comes out and the “baby” simply continues to lie there!

This same kind of mental gymnastics—which researchers refer to as the ability to use and manipulate mental symbols—is involved when children pretend to cook, have a tea party, crash toy cars, or fly toy planes. And development of this skill doesn’t stop here. As toddlers turn into preschoolers, their pretend play not only gets more elaborate but also gets more “abstract.” No longer is it necessary to play with something that closely resembles the real object (as a doll does a baby or a toy car does a real car); the preschooler now has the mental flexibility to pretend that a soft pillow is a baby that can be rocked or a block is a car that can go “vroom vroom.” In fact, development of the ability to pretend (or imagine) continues to get even more abstract until no physical object is needed at all—the arms can rock a totally imaginary doll!

So, the next time your child begins some kind of pretend scenario, appreciate it for what it is: a sign that the brain in that adorable little head is evolving in a wonderful direction, that is, toward increasingly sophisticated imagination—which, after all, is an important foundation of the valuable talent we call creativity.

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

Potty Training Tip From Parent on the “Front Line”

Anyone who’s been following this blog for awhile has heard me talk about how little Julia, the 16-month-old daughter of staff member Bonita Broughton, is already using the potty quite consistently thanks to our Baby Signs® Potty Training Program. In addition to regular “It’s potty time!” announcements from Bonita, Julia uses her potty sign to let mom know she needs to go. It’s really working; in fact, in one email this week, Bonita proudly announced Julia had gone in the potty 8 times in a single day. What’s more, the whole office witnessed it ourselves when she began insistently (and appropriately) signing “potty” during our staff meeting. (She actually now signs “potty” when she has to go pee and holds her nose when she has to go poop!)

For those of you not familiar with our Baby Signs® Potty Training Program, the idea is to help parents train their children before age 2. To that end we’ve designed a great potty training kit that includes, besides motivational items to get toddlers “on board the Potty Train,” also a simple, step-by-step guide for parents. I’m proud of the Parent Guide with the many tips for success it includes, but I recently realized that we left one out! Bonita has come up with a super tip for parents that I just have to pass along. So here it is:

Consider having the baby wear cloth panties INSIDE the diaper or pull-ups.

Why would you do this? Because, unlike superabsorbent disposable diapers, the cloth panties retain moisture thereby increasing the child’s discomfort and alerting him or her to the fact that an accident has happened. At the same time, there’s less of a mess to clean up than if the child was naked or using the panties alone. And yet it still takes advantage of the fact that many children are motivated to keep their new “big kids’ underwear” dry.

But won’t children be confused because a diaper is still part of the process. That’s where pull-ups can be helpful. Don’t be fooled; they are simply diapers in another form. However, this new form when used with the cloth underwear inside can symbolize the transition away from the “baby diapers” used up to now.

There’s no one magic formula for potty training because there’s no “one baby” out there. Every situation is different. So, just consider this tip another strategy to add to your tool box as you tackle this universal parenting challenge.

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

Linda

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

Just the Same Only Different!

One of the benefits of signing with babies is that it increases their interest in books (because it enables them to take a more active role in book-reading), an interest that helps pave the way to early literacy. But did you know that you can actually provide simple, fun activities starting even earlier that can help too? Here’s your tip for today from our book, Baby Minds.

One of the fundamental skills necessary for reading is the ability to quickly detect the differences between shapes. After all, that’s all that letters really are—shapes on a contrasting background. One way to lay the foundation for reading, then, is to expose your baby to shapes so that he can begin to differentiate curves and orientation. Here is an idea to help your baby begin to do just that.

I like to call this tip “Just the same, only different” –which sounds like a contradiction but really does fit. What you do is provide your baby with two pictures that are the same in most ways, but differ in one or two minor but perceivable ways. (The younger the baby, the more salient the differences should be.) Put them somewhere where your child is likely to look at them. For example, you might attach two identical pictures of a favorite character—Big Bird, perhaps-- to a wall by the crib, high chair, or changing table. Then make one different—maybe by adding a mustache and beard with a marker. In glancing at the pictures, your baby will, at first, just sense that they are not identical. This almost automatically leads to a search for the discrepancy—in other words, an urge to “compare and contrast” the two pictures. In this simple way you’ve given your baby something to think about—some “food for thought,” if you will—and in doing so you’re providing practice in recognizing subtle differences between similar shapes, thereby paving the way for letter recognition!

Happy Signing (and don’t forget to follow "Baby Signs" on Facebook)!

Linda

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

Kiddy Creativity!

Those of you who have been following this blog for awhile will remember little Julia, the baby daughter of staff member, Bonita Broughton. Now 16-months-old, Julia (see photo) is still a fantastic signer—with at least 70 signs at her disposal and more coming each day. In fact, she has such a wide range of signs that she can now use them to talk about things she doesn’t have signs for. Here’s the story.

Bonita and crew where visiting the National Zoo in Washington, DC, a few weeks ago. Julia was enchanted by all the animals and eager to use her many animal signs to label them—monkey, lion, bear, bird, zebra, elephant, and giraffe to name just a few. But then they came to a grasslands enclosure that featured something new to her: a prairie dog. As she often does when she encounters something she doesn’t have a sign for, she turned to her mom with a quizzical look, clearly expecting Bonita to show her the sign. Unfortunately, this time Bonita was stumped! What on earth is the sign for “prairie dog?” Bonita didn’t have a clue. That’s when Julia took the matter into her own hands—quite literally—and named the animal herself with a combination of two signs: MOUSE + DOG. How clever is that?!

Over the years we’ve heard similar stories:
• BIRD + HORSE upon seeing a big unicorn hanging from the ceiling in a department store.
• FAN + PLANE upon seeing a helicopter for the first time.
• MOON + LIGHT upon seeing globe-shaped street lights.
• FISH + HORSE upon seeing a video of a seahorse.
These examples are evidence of at least two things--first, that children have a strong urge to know the names for the things around them and, second, that they can create appropriate candidates themselves given the raw materials (that is, plenty of signs from which to choose). Let’s hear it for kiddy creativity!

Happy Signing--and don’t forget to follow Baby Signs on Facebook! (Also, click here for a link to a wonderful YouTube video of Julia reading a book using signs.)

Linda

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

Remember, Every Baby is Unique

Besides age (the younger the baby, the longer before the first sign), your baby’s unique temperament and personality will make a big difference in how quickly she learns to sign. This is an important point because parents are often so concerned about the speed of their own child’s development relative to other children that they miss the magic of the unfolding of their child’s unique time line of accomplishment.

One way babies’ temperaments and personalities affect development is their role in inspiring babies to set priorities for development. For some babies, communication is a top concern, and anything, including signs, that enables them to connect with other people is placed high on their to-do list. For other babies, motor milestones are more intriguing and take center stage. We can’t tell you how many parents have told us that their baby seemed uninterested—or temporarily lost interest—in signing until he or she conquered the challenge of learning to walk or climb.

This certainly was the case with my son, Kai (who is pictured in the photos above, first as a signing baby and now as a handsome 24-year-old!). Despite lots and lots of modeling of signs, Kai didn’t begin signing until his first birthday—two weeks after he was finally able to toddle around on his own. After that, it was off to the races in both domains!

So, just be patient and keep modeling signs. In doing so, you will be providing your baby interesting food for thought no matter how long it takes him to produce signs himself.

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

ABC Sign with Me!

The latest in our Baby Signs created series of On the Grow™ classes for children Birth to 6 is designed to introduce parents and children to the ASL signs for the letters of the alphabet through fun songs, games, and craft projects. (These classes are offered by a subset of our Baby Signs Instructors. See list in your area under Find a Class.)

Why learn the ASL alphabet? Basically, anything that makes learning about the alphabet fun automatically promotes literacy—and learning the letter signs does just that. Children think it’s fun! And while they are having fun, we are “sneaking in” some important information that is absolutely critical to learning to read. Here are just a few of the ways that signing the alphabet helps lay a strong foundation for literacy.

• Many of the hand shapes roughly resemble the letters they stand for, thereby helping children strengthen the association between the letter names and the visual forms of the letters.

• Learning separate hand shapes for individual letters helps clarify for children what the letter names actually stand for—for example, that “du-bul-you” is actually one, not three letters and the “emeno” is actually three letters (M,N,O) not one!

• Learning the letter signs leads naturally to “fingerspelling” of simple words which, in turn, provides visual evidence that words are made up of separate sounds. For example, simply saying the word “cat” blends all the sounds together, making it hard for children to understand that it’s actually a sequence of three sounds: “cah + ah + ta”. Having separate hand signs for each sound makes it easier for children to grasp this critical notion.

So, if you’re interested in helping you and child learn the ASL alphabet while having a great time with other families, check out the Baby Signs website to find an On the Grow™ Educator near you!

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

"Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers"

I'm sure all of you are aware of how reading books to babies from very early ages is important for fostering literacy(as Julie is doing here at two ages with my grandbabies, Olivia and Nate), but here's another useful tip.

I’m hoping some of you recognize the title of this post as a classic “Tongue Twister,” one among a set of old favorites that also includes “She sells sea shells by the sea shore” and “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.” I’m betting, though, that few of you have given thought to how these tricky mouthfuls actually aid kids in learning to read.

Here’s how. The way a phrase qualifies as a tongue twister is by including a series of words that all emphasize the same sound, for example, the sound of the letter “B” in the case of the baby buggy phrase. The beauty of these fun phrases is that they “sneak in” lessons about what reading teachers call “phonemic awareness”—the simple recognition that words, although when heard may sound like a single sound, are actually made up of separate sounds. The example I used in an earlier blog post where I talked about rhyming was the word “cat” which is actually made up of the separate sounds “C+A+T. Because the job of letters is to represent these separate sounds, being able to recognize that words are divisible in this way is obviously an important component of learning to read.

It makes sense, then, that anything that increases a child’s attention to the sounds at the beginning or within words—like Tongue Twisters do--indirectly helps increase phonemic awareness and, therefore, helps lay an important foundation for reading.

So, “Turn your toddler’s tongue to tricky twisting” and before you know it, she’ll be a “really rapid reader reading written words!”

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