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

Hidden Benefits of Reading the Same Book Over and Over

Even if you are bored with a particular book, reading the same storybook many times over is really good for children. In the case of dialogic reading (incorporating conversation outside of the written text into your reading time) going over the same story more than once enables a child to learn new vocabulary items well enough to us them in answer to questions. This is exactly what researcher Monique Senechal found when she read 3-year-olds a story either one time or three times. Toe two extra times make a big difference in the ability of the children to remember the meanings of ten new target words—like “angling,” “fedora,” and “satchel.” What’s more, when the three readings also included questions to the child (a la dialogic reading), the number of words remembered went up even higher—to average of almost 70 percent.

If that’s not enough to convince you, a study by Peter Jusczyk and Elizabeth Hohne has even shown that by the end of three readings, babies as young as 8 months recognize as familiar the specific words they’ve heard in the story. Unlike the 3-year-olds in Senechal’s study, babies this young aren’t learning what the words actually mean. They are, however, learning to recognize the sequence of sounds from which these words are made. Even at 8 months, then, rereading the stories leaves an impression on a baby’s mind.

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

Playtime is a Time to Talk, Talk, Talk

Although we frequently recommend playing make-believe with your child because it nurtures vocabulary development and conversation skills, there is definitely a place in the playroom of every child for non-fantasy toys—manipulative toys in particular. The adjective “manipulative” is used to describe toys where the goal is to make something interesting happen by manipulating components. For example, a typical busy box has handles to pull, windows to open, switches to push, wheels o spin. Toddler versions of these include age-old favorites such as stacking rings, puzzles, jack-in-the-boxes, and shape-sorters.

These toys are wonderful because they promote problem solving as well as provide entertainment. Just keep in mind that conversations needn’t turn totally boring when moving parts become the focus. Make sure to go beyond unimaginative phrases like “how about that one.” Be creative. Describe the colors and movements. Talk about the characters that pop up. Make comparisons to other toys. Ask your baby which parts she likes best. Talk about who gave the toy to your child. And don’t forget to extol your baby’s virtues with more than just “Wow!” when she does a good job. How much longer can it take to add, “You’ve sure made Mickey Mouse pop right up! He pops out like Donald Duck did. Remember how Donald Duck jumped up when you turned the wheel? Let’s show Daddy when he comes home.” As we are always telling toddlers to do, “Use your 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

Signing in Action: A Hair-Raising Experience

One of our research findings, in fact, the finding that surprised us the most, was a significant effect of signing on intellectual development. When we tested the children from our federally-funded study when they were 8 years old, we found significantly higher IQs among those who had signed as babies compared to those who had not.

Why might that be? Well, the fact that we know signing provides a jumpstart to verbal language development is certainly an important factor. Another contributor, we believe, is that the signing provides babies a way to ask questions and gain information about the world around them well without having to wait for words. The following story—which was emailed to us years ago from a mom in the Netherlands—provides a great example. See what you think.

As 14-month-old Sam sat next to his mother on the bus, a young man with his hair in dreadlocks sat down across the aisle. Obviously fascinated, Sam turned to his mother and patted his head, his sign for HAT. “Oh, honey I know it looks like a hat, but it’s really hair,” whispered his mom, simultaneously rubbing some of her hair between her fingers, the sign for HAIR. Sam turned back to the man, stared intently, and again caught his mother’s eye, this time patting his head with more vehemence. By now the young man had become curious enough to ask what was going on. “My son thinks you’re wearing a hat and doesn’t believe me when I tell him it’s really your hair,” Sam’s mom explained. In response, the young man invited Sam to feel his dreadlocks for himself. So Sam did, and no sooner had his fingers touched the young man’s hair than Sam raised his hand to his head and with eyes wide with surprise rubbed some strands of his own hair between his fingers. The message was as clear as if he had spoken the words: “It is hair!”

Imagine such mini lessons multiplied throughout the day and you’ll have a sense of what I’m talking about. Signs enable babies to gather information about things they are specifically interested in, thereby helping them start amassing knowledge without having to wait for words. The cumulative effect is more advanced intellectual performance down the line.

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