When Silvana Rotundo tells her 9-month-old son, Sean, it’s time to eat, she brings her fingers to her mouth and taps it repeatedly. When it’s time for a bath, she sticks out both thumbs and motions them across her chest. Sean knows exactly what his mom is saying. A former pre-school teacher turned certified Baby Signs instructor, Rotundo is among a growing number of parents introducing American Sign Language (ASL) to their hearing infants.
For Rotundo, the decision was born from experience; her daughter, who is now 6, experienced speech delays as a toddler, which led to incredible frustration and tantrums. “I felt like I could change that the second time around with my son and that it would reduce a lot of the frustration in the toddler years,” says Rotundo, a Brooklyn resident who incorporates signing into her son’s daily routine. She began introducing signs like “more” and “cookie” when Jacob was 4 months old, and believes he is on the verge of signing back.
Rotundo is hardly alone in her efforts to foster early communication. Though ASL has long been an alternative for deaf children and those who are hard of hearing, research in the 1980s provided a new perspective on the use of sign language with hearing babies.
A study conducted by Linda P. Acredolo, Ph.D., Susan W. Goodwyn, Ph.D. and Catherine A. Brown, M.A. showed that the parents of signing babies had less frustration, better communication, and a stronger parent-child bond with their infants than parents of non-signing babies. Additional research also demonstrated that signing babies had larger vocabularies and performed better on intelligence tests.
Why use sign language with a hearing baby?
In their book, Baby Signs: How To Talk to Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk, Drs. Acredolo and Goodwyn say that parents are often unaware of the important advances their pre-talking babies have made in language development. “One advantage of baby signs is that they enable your baby to show you, before he talks, just how much of the puzzle he’s already figured out.”
Lora Heller, founder of Baby Fingers — a program offering sign language classes in Manhattan and Brooklyn — says there is an immediate benefit to teaching your hearing baby sign language. “By teaching babies ASL,” Heller explains, “you are focusing on language. Your child has an actual language he has learned to communicate with before he can speak.”
Jacqueline Haberfeld, an Upper West Side mom, agrees. “Sign language gave our daughter a way to communicate with us before she could talk. At eight months, she had 10 signs that she used to get the things she wanted most, like milk, Cheerios and bananas. She also could tell us things we needed to know, like being tired, being hungry or needing to be changed.” Haberfeld adds that she didn’t have to go through a repertoire of soothing attempts before realizing what her child really wanted. “We knew what was wrong immediately, and could address it.”
Does signing delay speech?
“It’s the first question I get,” says Jennifer Lozano-Luna, a learning specialist in Queens, who has used ASL with special needs children and also offers Wee Hands classes for hearing children and their parents. While there may be some initial delay with speech, signing, she says, doesn’t inhibit language development. “It’s really a great way to have children communicate before they can actually use their language,” she points out. According to Drs. Acredolo and Goodwyn, language development can be compared to other baby milestones; just as a baby crawling doesn’t slow them down from walking, signing doesn’t inhibit talking. In a study for the National Institutes of Health, the two researchers found that rather than lagging behind, signing babies actually talked sooner than non-signing babies and were more advanced in their language skills.
Tara Fersko, a pediatric speech-language pathologist and mother of two, reports that her daughter began using signs around nine months and spoken words around 13 months. “She had the cognitive ability and, because of signs, the means to formulate questions and make phrases, even though she did not yet have the coordination to articulate her thoughts completely in words,” says the Manhattan resident. “I attribute her huge burst in expressive vocabulary [over 300 spoken words by 18 months] to her early use of language through signing.”
Many children continue to use signs even after learning to speak for emphasis, clarity, or when their emotions won’t allow for speech. Roberta Lasky, a Manhattan resident who taught signs to her son, remembers, “His first word was more. As his lan guage skills progressed, he still signed more while he was saying it.” There may even be instances when signing is useful for the talking child. “Children have the ability to express themselves when they’re too upset to talk,” explains Heller. Or it may simply be impossible to get the words out. Heller recalls her son signing “More pizza please, Mommy” with a mouth full.
ASL versus Personal Signs
Should parents make up signs with their babies or practice strict accordance to ASL? Proponents do not always agree. Drs. Acredolo and Goodwyn believe that because babies aren’t going to be using sign language all that long, it’s best to make it as easy to learn as possible and encourage creating signs, while Joseph Garcia (creator of the “Sign with Your Baby” program and one of the earliest researchers on the subject) sticks strictly to ASL.
Rotundo, who runs Baby Signs classes in Brooklyn, adheres to 90 percent ASL and then modifies certain signs due to age and children’s fine motor skill development. “In ASL, the sign for dog is to snap your fingers and tap your thighs,” she explains, noting that it’s a feat most children can’t accomplish until they’re older. The modified sign is to have kids pant like a dog and pat their thigh. At Baby Fingers, families learn ASL because Heller believes that babies should be exposed to a “real” language. “I am an advocate for the use of ASL,” she asserts. “ I recommend using this because people outside of your family will use it.”
When should you start?
Lozano-Luna suggests six months as an optimum time to start. “Children are able to capture concepts better and their long-term memory is working at that age,” she explains. It’s not unusual for parents to begin signing before their babies are capable of producing the signs themselves. Fersko began signing with both her children at five months. “My son’s first sign was ‘dog’, which he started using very early at around six months,” she says. For the most part, parents who’ve embraced the approach say teaching signs was easy. Many recommend attending classes, however proponents stress that a once-a-week class isn’t enough. The best way to reinforce any language is to be consistently signing at home and to keep it fun for your child.
Even when children do master verbal language and have outgrown tantrums, some parents say it’s still fun to sign with their toddlers. “Children can continue to grow with ASL,” says Rotundo. “It’s like growing from baby talk to more mature verbal ability.”
Get Signing Resources
Classes: • Baby Fingers — Classes offered in Manhattan and Brooklyn; (212) 874-5978 or visit www.mybabyfingers.com. • BabySigns — Classes offered in Park Slope and Bay Ridge, Brooklyn; (718) 491-1307 or visit www.babysigns.com. • Gymboree has Baby Signs® Parent Workshops and Sign, Say & Play classes, as part of their new “Learning Program”. www.gymboree.com. • Sign-a-Song — Classes offered in Park Slope and Cobble Hill; (718) 832-8060 or visit www.sign-a-song.com.
Books: • Lora’s Heller’s books: Sign Language for Kids, and Baby Fingers: Teaching Your Baby to Sign (Sterling Publishers), and upcoming this spring: Baby Fingers: I Want, and Baby Fingers: I’m Feeling • Baby Signs: How to Talk to Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk, by Linda Acredolo, Ph.D. and Susan Goodwyn, Ph.D. (Contemporary Books) • Singing Smart With Babies and Toddlers, by Michelle E. Anthony, M.A., Ph.D. and Reyna Lindert, Ph.D. (St. Martin’s Griffin) • Dancing with Words: Signing for Hearing Children’s Literacy, by Marilyn Daniels (Bergin & Garvey) • Sign with Your Baby: How to Communicate with Infants Before They Can Speak, by Joseph Garcia (Northlight Communications)
DVDs and CDs: • Baby Fingers Sign & Song (DVD, by Lora Heller; www.mybabyfingers.com) • Pick Me Up! (Music CD and Activity Guide, Sign2Me, program created by Joseph Garcia, $36.95); www.signtome.com • Sign-A-Lot DVD series (See me Sign, LLC., $19.95); www.signalot.com
