5 reasons to teach toddlers sign language
Post written by: beagooddad
When the kids were born I saw a sign that invited parents to sign up their six month old kids for a sign language class. I planned on following through but forgot about it.
We picked up a copy of Talking Hands when the kids were about 1 1/2 and quickly realized what a great opportunity we had missed.
In my experience there are at least 5 benefits to learning sign language as early as possible.
- Kids are able to communicate before they can talk. A lot of late infant/early toddler tantrums are caused by the kids not being able to explain what they need.
- Two languages reinforce each other. Since the kids can talk and sign at the same time, they both work together to help the child get better at both.
- Gets kids used to mimicking. Kids learn most things by immitating how somebody else does it. The quicker they start developing an interest in mimicking their parents the better.
- Fun play. Kids like movement and signing definitely can get a toddler moving.
- Developes attention skills. Since you have to watch the signer to “hear” the words, kids are forced to make eye contact and pay attention to what is being said. I’ve been able to use sign language in loud places where our kids would not have been able to distinguish my voice in the crowd but were able to focus on my hands.
When we have our next kid, I will be showing them signs from day one so he or she can communicate with us as early as possible.
Update: In addition to doing well on Reddit, this story has also been submitted to Digg. If you are interested in voting for this particular story at either spot, here are the links:
August 8th, 2006 at 1:17 pm
And one big reason not to. Every kid I know who has been taught signing talks later. End of story. While we’re at it let’s talk about reasons not to learn French, German and/or Spanish. Jeesh. Good luck with the hands thing. Oh, and reason #2 is that your kid is not your experiment.
August 8th, 2006 at 1:34 pm
I do plan on teaching them a little Spanish before too long. It has nothing to do with experimenting with them. There is nothing wrong with teaching your kids how to do things. That’s what parents are supposed to do.
August 8th, 2006 at 1:48 pm
Sorry to sound so bitchy and unreasonable. I have 2 kids (4 and 2) and try not to experiment with things on them too much.
One other thing…. I would encourage you to have your next kid within 3 years (at the most) of your first. Our second child has progressed much faster than the older child in terms of language, walking, potty training, etc. Having an elder sibling is a huge benefit to the younger kid. Further, the second child has not had half as much parental attention in the first 2 years as the older child received in those first two years. Parental attention goes a long way but perhaps it’s not as much as we give ourselves credit for. Competition from other kids seems to be good.
My point on Spanish/German/Romance Languages Other Than English is that they are marginally useful. More useful might be Chinese. More useful for sure is the Math/Music education.
It’s hard to know what to do. Just my .02… Cheers -
August 8th, 2006 at 2:31 pm
More knowledge is good, as long as it is reinforced by everyday life. Sign language can be quite useful, especially when trying to communicate “dirty diaper” across a crowded room.
The important thing is to
- stay relaxed
- be consistent
- don’t make the kid an extension of your ego
August 8th, 2006 at 6:59 pm
When my son was one he was diagnosed with a heart defect. Before he had surgery (at about 22 months) we began to teach him sign language to be able to communicate with him after his open-heart procedure. When a child is stuck on a bunch of tubes they become frustrated that they can’t talk and it slows their recovery.
We are glad we took the time because four days after his surgery he had a stroke in his left hemisphere taking 25% of his total brain mass. We were lucky he was alive - but he completely lost the ability to speak (total aphasia).
In the following months as part of his therapy we took an aggressive approach to adding to his sign langauage knowledge.
Sign langauage made a HUGE difference in his recovery of learning to talk all over again. His brain had a backup language skill to draw from as he struggled to speak. This strategy is very close to my heart because I saw the reality of the author’s #2 and #5 reasons help bring back my son. I would HIGHLY recommend this approach to all parents….
Thanks for bringing attention to this great approach to helping kids grow.
August 8th, 2006 at 8:07 pm
LMFAO @ your “Share and Enjoy:” links.
I think you missed a few..
August 9th, 2006 at 4:20 am
Anonymous,
It took me forever to figure out what you were talking about. Those are the default ones that the plugin uses. Someday I’ll get around to trimming it down. Thanks for the reminder.
August 9th, 2006 at 9:47 am
We have done this with both of our kids, it is the best thing possible. It did not hinder the progress of spoken language and very much was a help in able to tell us what they want/need without the massive frustrations. Four key words:
Please
Thanks you
More
All Done
One of our daughters even used the “all done” in some unique ways. It was very interesting to see.
August 9th, 2006 at 11:44 am
Im going to do this with my next child, its been in the back of my mind for a while now.
Going to start teaching our current boy signing now, hes still young and can get some benefit from it, although he is 2 now, when/if we have a second child, the kids would be able to communicate just as well as parents would be.
August 9th, 2006 at 1:27 pm
to commentor #1…of course your kid is your experiment - who else’s experiment is s/he? every parent has to figure it out as they go along to some degree, which is equivalent to ‘experimenting’. and it’s not like child-rearing has some commonly-accepted rules that we all go by. or are you the model parent we’re all supposed to check with on how we are *supposed* to raise our children???
also, your statement that teaching kids to sign makes them talk later is not supported by any evidence beyond your personal experience (how many kids do you know who fit the criteria?), and since your other statement is erroneous i feel confident in dismissing this one as well.
August 9th, 2006 at 2:02 pm
Children are intellectually able to communicate before they are physically able to speak. My goddaughter learned to sign satrting as an infant, including several signs for animals. When she saw one she would make the sign, and you could look around to find what she noticed, and share in her awareness of it. It was amazing how well she identified them - not just actual animals but photographs, artwork, stuffed animals, etc. Signing allowed her to say “I see a lion!” and be understood before she was old enough to speak.
I agree with brechmos’ list of key words, and would add one more. If you’re nursing, teach your child the sign for “mommy milk.” They cry a lot less when they can just tell you that they’re hungry.
August 9th, 2006 at 6:33 pm
Here are some other words that are good to learn fairly early.
Tired
Dog/Cat/Fish (or what ever type of animal you have as a pet)
What else can we add to the list?
August 9th, 2006 at 8:42 pm
Potty is a good word to learn as they can tell you when they have a dirty diaper or need the restroom later on.
We also discovered that our daughter would make up some of her own signs for things such as Brush your teeth, Brush your hair, and Bath.
August 9th, 2006 at 9:01 pm
One important thing is to understand that children do not have the motor skills to do a sign exactly as the ASL dictionary might say. You’ll find that each child has their own twist for common signs. In our house, “all done” looks more like the end of a magic trick, showing that the hands are indeed empty. “Thank you” involves actually kissing the hand, not just touching it to the lips. And we can’t do “carrot” without making a crunching sound. But it works for us.
My other recommendation is to add some fun words to your list of common signs. These can be toys/foods your child likes, or signs that are just fun to do. Watermelon, tree, grapes, and cat are all fun signs to act out.
August 9th, 2006 at 9:45 pm
Bubba Bo Bob, learning Spanish is “marginally useful?” You might want to check the stats from the last census and see projections for what minority group will be the majority very soon. As nice as it would be if all Hispanics could speak English, that’s not reality and won’t be anytime soon. As someone who learned Spanish growing up, I can tell you from personal experience that it’s an advantage in the vast majority of fields you can work in (in my case, medicine).
August 10th, 2006 at 8:41 am
I think the sign-language thing is great, but I’m personally going to NOT teach my thrid child (1 month old) this time. I think it becomes a crutch that slows verbalization–I have no idea if this is something that has good representation in the scientific literature, but it would be good to get some hard data. I’m sure this is something that has been studied objectively.
August 10th, 2006 at 9:00 am
I’m sure the research is probably contradicting like most research for kids. I think as a parent you just have to go with your gut and choose what feels right for you and your kids. We really started pushing it only when we saw our son shows signs of communicating. He is a late speech developer, so getting anything out of him felt like a miracle. Our daughter picked it up because it is fun.
When we have our next child, we’ll teach her early. I’ll be interested in seeing if our twins try to sign to the future baby once they realize that she is starting to learn.
August 10th, 2006 at 9:35 am
Hey, just wanted to say this was a really interesting post. I used to run a playgroup for dads and their kids, and a couple of the guys had been using sign language with their children from a very early age. They both highly recommended it.
BTW, I cam by way of a link on MSNBC’s Clicked blog. I posted a link on my own site as well.
August 10th, 2006 at 10:25 am
Thanks for stopping by, Russ. What a strange place to get linked from? Not that I’m complaining, mind you. Thanks for the link for your site as well.
August 14th, 2006 at 12:54 pm
[...] Make them ask for more. When they finish eating all of the bread, do not put another piece of bread on their plate. Make them ask for more. If they can not talk yet, you can settle for pointing, banging their tray, or crying but they should give some sign that they want more. You can also try learning a couple signs like “more” and “milk.” When they can talk, make them ask for more hot dogs. It is good for building communication skills and social skills like waiting for somebody to have a chance to help them. [...]
August 16th, 2006 at 5:32 am
My sister-in-law is a speech pathologist/therapist, and she told us that research suggests that signing can actually lead to earlier speaking because the two forms of communication strengthen one another. I haven’t actually looked for any hard research myself, but I figure a specialist in the field is a pretty good place to start. She was very enthusiastic about it.
August 16th, 2006 at 10:07 am
Bubba Bo Bob, I can understand your notion that learning sign language early on would impede verbalization of words (”why talk when I am already communicating?”). However, that’s only if the sole form of communication is signing and no one verbally talks with the child. Kids are wired to pick up on the languages that surround them, however many languages there may be. What’s important is consistency. From the way you word it, it would seem like raising a child in a two-language (or more) household would be a detriment to them learning either language in general.
As has been said before, this is not the case. Sure, there will be the mixing of the languages with each other at first (just like there is the misuse of general grammar rules, like “mouses” instead of “mice”, and “spended” instead of “spent”), but it tends to sort itself out as long as the child’s surroundings are consistent in differentiating the languages from each other (and not constantly using both in the same sentence as if it were correct to do so).
August 24th, 2006 at 5:32 am
Hi, I’m Deaf and I started to use signs with my oldest (hearing) daughter when she was about 1 month old. At age 6 mos old, she knew 6 signs - more, milk, mommy, eat, watermelon and ‘poop’. She was the happiest child at our friend’s BBQ party. She signed what she wanted and I got what she asked for while the other parents struggled trying to find out what their babies want.
Teaching babies signs would reduce thier tantrums or frustrations.
Here are some links that you might be interested.
http://www.babysigns.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/institute.research_extensive/extensive_research.cfm
http://www.geocities.com/mactiers/babysigns.html
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=1657862&page=1
http://learnlanguage.infopik.info/learn-sign-language-at-home/
August 24th, 2006 at 6:07 am
Patty, thanks for the links and your story. When Pookie learned a few signs, I was pretty amazed at how quickly a dinner tantrum could be avoided by reminding him the sign for what he was really trying to ask for. He seemed so proud to finally have a way of asking by himself.
January 12th, 2007 at 6:59 am
My husband and I taught our baby sign language and he is now 19 months old and signs and he won’t stop talking!! Now we need to figure out a way to get him to keep signing! Husband is hearing and I am hard of hearing. Sign Language has been the best thing for our son!
April 17th, 2007 at 10:56 pm
[...] to every few days or so. I never planned on it being my main one. My sixth post was called “5 reasons to teach your toddler sign language.” Bored one day, I submitted it to Reddit. It got 78 votes and made the front page sending [...]
April 19th, 2007 at 8:03 am
I learned to speak 2 languages from birth, I think the earlier a child is exposed to additional languages the better. But when it comes to signing I suspect there could be problems if the child can sign but neither parent can… A foreign language is a definite good idea.
Here are some great toys for teaching French http://www.toyboxlearning.com/buy-learning-toys-shop.asp?toyrange=language-learning&toysubrange=learning-French
May 1st, 2007 at 5:40 pm
I had wanted to sign with my son but never got around to it. Then suddenly when he was about 18 months old I noticed he had his own signs for hot and a really odd one for cold! We continually asked him if something was hot or cold just to see if he was indeed signing in his own unique way. He was. So we then started to teach him a few more; please and thank you. He even signs please on other kids who don’t sign if they both want something. It’s cute. Now at 27 months he was started signing bath (again his own sign) and saying bath at the same time. Oh and yesterday out came a sign for Stop. I love it and think it’s great and creative of him.
May 31st, 2007 at 1:21 am
Sean, how do you think the child learns to sign if not from the parents teaching them?
We’ve taught my son (16 months) 4-5 signs (the ones he’s most consistent with are cat and dog). He doesn’t say any words. (No, not even “mama” or “dada.”)
I don’t think these things are connected. He didn’t learn to sign until after he was one (by which time, at least according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, he should have been saying Mama, Dada and a few more words). I doubt that he thinks relying on his few signs to communicate is convenient enough. (I think he might occasionally want to say something other than cat, dog, more, all gone, fan or bye bye. Maybe not, though.)
Instead, I’m grateful that my son’s limited sign vocabulary gives us at least some tiny insight into whatever’s going on in his head. There’s no way for us to undo this “experiment” and try a different “experiment” of not teaching him to sign to see if he’d be speaking by now. There’s no REAL way to know if the children you know who sign and don’t speak would speak if they didn’t know sign.
June 18th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Signing Time
http://www.signingtime.com/
Excellent source for learning true ASL (some news shows just make signs up when reporting about sign language children). Rachele Coleman teaches true ASL (American Sign Language) through video and song.
I have seen it happen with my now four year old daughter, she was signing around 8 months for the ‘basics’ (milk, eat, etc). She has taken that and learned up to 100+ signs, and she has no limits when encountering deaf children she can talk to them and allow them to speak to her. This allows the deaf child’s world not to be closed up because they can’t talk vocally.
Not only in that field, but also helps you communicate with your children as they are learning to speak (which helps prevent the terrible 2’s).
Now my son is learning, and he is signing ‘milk’ at 7 months and enjoys (along with my daughter) watching Signing Times.
You can also catch Signing Time on your local PSB station, check the Signing Time web site.
June 18th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Astrotrain,
We have a couple of those and the kids love them.
June 30th, 2007 at 1:23 am
I see that Bubba Bo Bob got an earful from several commenters here…so I’ll try and keep my voice down. Not that he’ll hear me from a year ago!
We signed with Beth from before she could speak, and we saw no reticence in her to start talking. I would say that signing might even have accelerated her desire to talk. Signing is not a silent sport - along with the sign, the parent repeats the word, and they become the first words a child will say - along with the sign. And today Beth will occasionally ask, “What’s the sign for…?”
June 30th, 2007 at 10:17 am
Rory,
Funny timing. We broke out our baby babble video for the first time in over a year last night. At the end they go through some signs. That video was one of our first entries into the whole sign language experience.
The sign language has definitely decreased in our house now that the kids are 4 1/2. I still think it was a huge benefit for Pookie to learn the signs he did. I think that helped him understand that communication involved him being able to tell us things that he wanted and was thinking about. I still use the sign for sit every now and again when the kids are getting to rowdy at a family gathering.
June 30th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Oh, yeah. It’s great over a crowded room, as well. Beth is playing over the other side of the room and I’ll get her attention and do the sign for “home”. She comes running - actually, that’s not entirely true…she often gets deflated and sits tight, so I still have to go and get her. But, the point is, she knows what it means.
I also make a point of doing the sign for “thank you” because it is helping to convey the social niceties.
The timing is weird!
Hoping things are going well with you, Mike, and the family.
October 17th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
Thank you for this blog post! I think it’s especially important for fathers to learn sign with their infants just as much as it is for mothers. I have linked you to my site here:
http://www.babies-and-sign-language.com/fathers-learn-participate-join.html
Your post is an inspiration. Thank you! Please post more about your progresses since your last post? Thank you again!
Sincerely,
MJ
November 11th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
“Bubba Bo Bob”… the name sort of says it all, wouldn’t you say?
We believe in language exposure, and in baby-sign-language, but didn’t actually do anything about it. My first daughter then just started using her own–rubbing her tummy for ‘hungry/yummy’, et c. When she was about 9 mos old, she started saying “Mama”, and we noticed that *every* time she did, she would pat her chest. Then we realized that Mam would pat her own chest when prompting ‘Mama’. Aoife now uses a host of signs she made up on her own. It’s nonsense to say that that would hold her language development back, and any argument against signing with baby would have to suggest *discouraging* her from incorporating the signs she makes up herself… Not to mention all the non-signing signs *EVERYBODY* uses, from facial expressions to pointing. Arguing against it is like arguing against occupying the left side of a room.
And since they can use the sign before the word, well, why wouldn’t you? (p.s.: that’s rhetorical)
Mise le meas,
Deois “Doc”
January 16th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
I would just like to say to “Bubba Bo Bob”, you seem like a pretty ignorant and lazy person. I’m a hearing child of deaf parents so I naturally learned sign language. If anything, it made it so much easier for my parents that I could communicate them at such a young age without even speaking and my brother and I had less tantrums than most toddlers. I actually began speaking and holding conversations at a younger age than most children. Besides, what can it hurt to teach your baby sign language? If anything they’ll benefit so much more by it. And after my rant, I basically just wanted to say that I feel that maybe you think baby sign language is useless because it means you might have to actually learn it too.