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