Doll House vs. Fire Station

In this post I’m going to be bringing together a number of different themes (and not signing with babies, for a change) that are salient in research on early child development: Sex differences in choice of toys; the fact that girls learn to talk on average earlier than boys, and the relationship between different types of play and language development. And I’m going to do all this by highlighting a a photo I took last week while taking care of my twin grandchildren, Nate and Olivia.

• First, sex differences in choice of toys: From the time they were old enough to make choices for themselves, it’s been clear (despite efforts from parents and grandparents to the contrary) that Nate was in love with anything with wheels and vroom-vroom noises and Olivia with anything pink, purple, and with the word “princess” or “baby” in the title. In fact, one of the most recent of Olivia’s favorites is a large pink and white plastic doll house complete with pink and white frilly furniture and a pink clad baby. Needless to say, Nate is not equally enchanted.

• Second, sex differences in verbal development: One of the most robust of all differences between boys and girls is the fact that—on average—girls learn to talk earlier than boys. (Note. This is true for learning words, but not signs. No sex difference there.)

• Third, relationship between types of play and verbal development: Dr. Susan Goodwyn and I discovered a number of years ago that pretend play, in contrast to manipulative play (where the child just moves pieces in some way—like shape sorters, hammers and peg boards, puzzles), helps facilitate language development. There are a number of reasons why, but the main one is because pretend play involves so much language itself! The child is thinking and often explaining out loud pieces of some kind of simple plot, either alone or in response to questions from adults. Susan and I suspect that one of the reasons boys lag behind girls in language is because the toys they are typically given (with some exceptions to be sure) are less likely to inspire pretending than the baby dolls, tea sets, and doll houses typically given girls.

So, how do these three observations relate to the photo above? Take a close look at the nature of the toy Nate is playing with. It is, in fact, a miniature structure. But instead of being a typical “doll house” like Olivia’s, it’s a pretend fire station. It has many of the same things Olivia’s does--a kitchen (firefighters have to eat after all), bathroom, bedroom and living area—but it also has a pole to slide down, a treadmill, an elevator, a fire truck, and a heliport! My point is that it has characteristics that Nate, like lots of little boys, value while at the same time promoting the type of play (i.e., pretending) that is so good for language development. And he loves it! I stood and watched him play for a long time and was amazed at the imaginary scenarios he was describing in words, both to himself and in explanation to me.

The lesson in all this is directed at parents and grandparents as they think about appropriate toys. Simply, keep in mind that pretending is critical to both boys and girls and that sex difference in preferences for pretend scenarios are often a fact of life, but that with a bit of creative thinking on our own parts, it’s possible to satisfy both requirements.

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

Sign Time, Rhyme Time #2

About a month ago I used this blog to post some of the little rhymes that appeared in the first 2 editions of my book with Dr. Susan Goodwyn, Baby Signs: How to Talk with Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk. These rhymes, which we created ourselves, were designed so that parents could accompany them with signs, thereby making it fun and easy for their baby to learn them.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t include them in the third and most recent edition of the book, but that doesn’t mean they don’t work. So below are a few more of our favorites.

Farmer in the Dell (can be sung)
The farmer in the dell
The farmer in the dell
Heigh-ho the derry-oh
The farmer in the dell
The farmer reads a book (BOOK)
The farmer reads a book (BOOK)
Heigh-ho the derry-oh
The farmer reads a book. (BOOK)
(Repeat with the following--)
The farmer drives a car (CAR) . . .
The farmer eats a snack (EAT) . . .
The farmer asks for more (MORE) . . .
The farmer buys a bird (BIRD) . . .
The farmer pets a cat (CAT) . . .
Etc….

When the Stars are Out
When the stars are out (STARS)
And the moon is bright—(MOON)
Blow out your candle (CANDLE—Blow finger tip)
And say, “Sleep tight!” (SLEEP)

All Gone
Into the clouds—
All gone plane. (ALL GONE, AIRPLANE)
Into the tunnel—
All gone train (ALL GONE, TRAIN)
Water in the bathtub (WATER)
All gone down the drain! (ALL GONE, DOWN).

As you may have noticed for yourself, it’s not hard to come up with simple rhymes like these—or to add signs to traditional rhymes (e.g., Jack & Jill). So, get creative yourself!

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

Everyone Benefits from Signing with Babies!

Before I retired from UC Davis, I was lucky enough to have a graduate student who fell in love with the research Dr. Susan Goodwyn and I had been doing for so long on the effects of signing with hearing babies. Her name is Dr. Claire Vallotton, and she is now an Assistant Professor at Michigan State University continuing her (and our) research on the topic.

I just heard from Claire the good news that one of her studies has just appeared in the professional journal, Early Childhood Research Quarterly (2012, Volume 27, pps. 401-415). The results are exciting and worth sharing here because they extend the benefits of signing beyond just middle-class families to low-income families enrolled in an Early Head Start Program in Northern California.

Why is this important? We all know that parents who have the luxury of higher education, access to parenting books and mommy-and-me classes, and progressive child care programs are eager to pursue anything that holds the promise of benefitting their kids. And this certainly includes the Baby Signs® Program. What’s more, they usually have the time and energy to follow-though on the information they receive. As a result, middle-class babies all over the world are enjoying the many benefits that signing has been proven to bring.

But what about parents who are less likely to be aware of signing and it’s benefits and less likely to have the time and energy to implement the program. Unfortunately, many low-income families fall into this category.

What Claire has done is demonstrate--with an experimental study comparing EHS families whose Home Visitors encouraged them to sign with families whose Home Visitors did not—that Early Head Start parents can be effective teachers and that both parents and children do benefit from the experience. Her specific goal, unlike the emphasis in our own research on verbal language development, was to see how signing would affect the intricacies of parent-child interactions.

So what did she find? She found that moms in the signing group were more attuned to changes in their children’s emotions and more responsive to their distress cues. In addition, the signing moms also viewed their children more positively, a benefit that reduced perceived stress. All these positive changes are important because they are critical components of a healthy “attachment” relationship—which, in turn, is a predictor of positive emotional development long term.

I can’t say that we’re surprised by these findings. In fact, we would have been surprised if she hadn’t found them. But we are definitely pleased to have them in print for the world, including policy makers, to see!

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

Thank Goodness for Early Potty Training!

One of the things I’m most proud of is my development, with Dr. Susan Goodwyn, of the Baby Signs® Potty Training Program. The whole goal of the program is to (a) convince parents to potty training earlier than is typical today, and (b) to provide materials for both them and their toddlers to help make it happen. And, just recently I witnessed for myself exactly why training early is such a good idea. Here’s what happened.

It was 2 weeks ago that my husband and I accompanied my step-son, daughter-in-law, and twin grandchildren on their first ever camping trip. The twins, just a bit over 3 years old, were like whirling dervishes—running, jumping, and even somersaulting as they explored the tent, air-mattresses, and the great outdoors. Lay down for the usual afternoon nap? Are you kidding, Grandma?! Don’t throw the sand or the stones? Are you kidding, Grandpa?! Come eat food not cooked or served in the usual way. No way, Mom! Or more accurately, “Noooooooooooo!”

Don’t get me wrong: The twins are wonderful kids—but they are also typical 3-year-olds who have developed what psychologists call a “sense of self,” meaning that they are, for the first time, able to think of themselves as independent beings who can have their own thoughts and can express (loudly!!) their own opinions. This major advance typically begins around age 2 but is in full blossom by age 3—and stays that way until reason begins to reign around age 4 and 5. The achievement of a sense of self is a wonderful and necessary milestone, but it is also one that carries with it the inevitable consequence of tantrums, stubborn refusals, and the increasingly frequent use of the word “no.”

Back to the campsite: Despite all the feverish exploration, uncontrollable energy, and battles of will over many things, both twins went potty predictably and happily in their portable potty chairs time after time after time! What made this happy situation possible was the fact that the twins had already been potty trained for over 8 months. For them, using the potty was just a fact of life, not a novel skill to be learned—or, as is all too frequent with older toddlers, resisted.

And I wasn’t the only one who noticed. Mom and Dad, in describing difficulties their friends with older toddlers were having, said more than once what a nightmare it could have been had they waited. At least in this one important arena, the word “Nooooooo!” was not a problem!

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

When Washing a Car is More than Just Getting it Clean

Suggest to a teenager that he or she should wash Mom’s car and you can just imagine the reply, with pursed lips, eye-rolling, and heavy-hearted harrumphing. Suggest the same to a toddler—as I did the other day while babysitting my twin grandchildren—and the result is excited compliance. The contrast is enough to make one wonder why something that is so clearly unwanted work at one age is such a delight at another. The former is too complex for a simple blog entry, so let’s focus on the latter.

The reason lies in the fact that (a) the human ability to imitate is deeply ingrained and (b) meeting challenges at any age brings a sense of well-being. Let’s address them in order. Even 1-day-old human babies are capable of imitating simple facial gestures they see Mom or Dad make—like sticking out one’s tongue or pursing one’s lips. This ability is astonishing given that babies this young have never even seen their own tongues or lips! How do they do it? Neuroscientists have discovered over the last decade that we are all born with a type of cell in the brain called a “mirror neuron,” a cell whose job it is to both register what we see others do and then mirror those actions. Voila! Imitation!

And what a handy tool imitation is. From the very earliest years, children learn tons and tons of important skills by engaging the ability to imitate---including how to feed themselves, use signs to communicate, learn words, sing songs, put on their own clothes, throw balls—and on and on and on.

What about “b,” the satisfaction of a job well-done. Again, this is something humans are born with. Even very young babies work hard to reach goals—whether it’s successfully getting spoon to mouth, communicating with signs or words, singing songs, getting dressed, or throwing a ball. In other words, the ability to imitate and the desire to meet a challenge work in tandem to help each of us develop the skills we need to survive in complex human culture.

This brings us back to why washing Mom’s car was so exciting to my twin toddler grandchildren, Nate and Olivia. Quite simply, they were reveling in the opportunity to imitate something they’d seen grown-ups do and in the fact that doing so provided them with a sense of being a bit more grown up themselves. They had a “job” to do and doing it was satisfying!

Now, if only we could get our teenagers to feel the same way…..

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

Sign Time, Rhyme Time

As some of you may know, the first edition of the foundational book that launched the “sign language with babies” movement—my book with Dr. Susan Goodwyn, Baby Signs: How to Talk with Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk—was published way back in 1996. Since that time we’ve published two more editions, one in 2002 and the most recent in 2009.

In all three editions we accomplished the major goal of helping families understand the benefits of signing, appreciate the fact that the Baby Signs® Program is founded on our government-funded research, and learn easy ways to incorporate signing into daily life within their homes.

However, because of space constraints, we found it necessary in this latest edition to leave out one of my favorite features—a set of simple poems easily combined with signs that parents can recite to help their little ones learn signs in a fun way. Maybe because I personally authored most of these, I was really sad to see them go. Then it suddenly occurred to me that there is no reason I can’t share a few of them here! So enjoy!

Dreamland
One last drink of water (Water or Drink)
My favorite teddy bear (Bear)
A lap to curl up in (Pat lap)
And the old rocking chair (Rocking torso)
A book about kittens (Book; Cat)
A song about love (Love)
And I’m off to dreamland (Sleep)
With the stars up above. (Stars)

Butterfly Wings
Butterfly wings go fluttering by (Butterfly—left to right)
Down to the flowers and up to the sky Butterfly—down, then up)
Butterfly wings tickle your toes (Butterfly to toes)
Butterfly wings land right on your nose! (Butterfly—to nose)

Giraffes are Tall
Giraffes are tall (Giraffe)
Birdies are small (Bird)
But itty bitty fleas you can’t see at all! (Tickle baby)

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