Talking hands 2.0

Natallie was my inspiration for my original Talking Hands blog post. As with all things with the second child, I was a little late in starting to teach baby sign with Noah. I was hoping that just by being around his non-stop chatterbox sister, he would just wake up one day and say, "Good morning dear mother, sorry for getting you up at 5:30am. Shall we have some breakfast now?" Alas, that has not yet happened (talking and sleeping past 5:45am).

I began pairing words with sign with Natallie when she was 6 months or so and she learned her first sign around her first birthday. With Noah, I didn't start til closer to his first birthday but once he picked up one sign, his acquisition rate of new signs has been pretty phenomenal.

Noah signs 'dirty'

If your baby isn't talking yet, here's 5 reasons why you should:

1. Cut down on the whine time. Its a fact - babies cry. Toddlers cry. Usually because they are hungry, tired, bored or they didn't think that the plaid shirt you picked out matched the hipster tight jeans. Now if you can teach your baby to tell you what is wrong, you're more likely to be able to fix it for them. Like when Noah gets up from nap and I put him in the highchair thinking he must be hungry for a snack and he pouts and signs "shoes" and points to the door. Point taken. No snack, just want to play outside. Or the time I was putting Noah to bed and he was crying and I kept on just "sshhing" him and it wasn't until I turned on the light and saw that he was signing 'bunny' which cued me to send out a family search party for his little pink bunny he can't sleep without. Got it. Tears averted.

Even after your child begins talking, their articulation for words is not very clear. I still remember when Natallie was a toddler and kept saying what sounded like "turkey" in the car and I was wondering if by random chance a truck of turkeys passed by or she all of a sudden craved Thanksgiving dinner. Then at the red light I turned around and saw she had been signing "cookie" while saying what sounded like "turkey!" Unless she knew the sign, I would of gone home wondering if I should make a turkey for supper.

2. Smart people say it improves communication later. It's true, research articles with real babies and people with lots of letters after their name found that "model prompts and positive reinforcement were successful in teaching sign to infants, even as young as 6 months old and another infant with Downs syndrome" (Thompson et al., 2007, Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis). Another study compared one group that used baby sign vs. one that didn't and results were that "symbolic gesturing seems to jump start later verbal development" (Goodwyn et al.,2000, Journal of Nonverbal |Behavior). 

3. It does not slow down development of real speech. I know a lot of people worry that if you teach your baby to sign that they won't be motivated to talk with words. That's not true. By teaching them at an early age that they can communicate their needs and comment about their world, they are more likely to want to talk because at some point, your child will realize that talking is easier and they can describe their world a lot better with words. Noah can point to the ducks at the park and sign, "duck" and then signs "throw" which means he wants to throw bread for the ducks but no one else would really know what that means.

Noah signs "open" and "close" when he sees the doors on the skytrain

Side note: if you teach sign to your baby, make sure your spouse or other people that spend a lot of time with your child knows those signs too. Like when dear Auntie Rainbee was watching Noah and asks me why Noah keeps pointing to his teeth. The poor kid has been parched and signing for water for half an hour and all Auntie is doing is saying, "yes! nice teeth Noah! you have lots of teeth!"

"water" not teeth

4. Teaching baby sign could help with teaching a second language. So no proof here yet but once your child understands sign, you could use that sign while speaking English or the other language you are trying to teach. So I'm thinking in theory, since your child already knows what you mean because you are signing it, he will be more likely to associate the other language with the word since you can sign and talk simultaneously. So if you teaching Chinese and you see a dog, you can sign "dog" and say "dog" (in English) and "whoa whoa gow" (in Chinese)! Does that make sense? If I ever do a PhD, remind me that this would be a super interesting thesis question.

signs "fish"

5. It gives you a glimpse into what your child is thinking and feeling. So we don't just talk because we want stuff right? You don't go around just saying " Give me water! I need some food!" A lot of what we say is commenting like why gas prices are so high or making stupid jokes. Why is your baby any different? By teaching baby sign, you allow your child to talk to you about not just want he wants but also what he's sees (like that airplane in the sky, the squirrel that ran up the tree) or making jokes. Noah will now "joke" with us and point to things and sign the wrong thing on purpose and laugh. Like pointing to a fish in a book and signing "cat" and laughing or standing up in the chair and then signing to himself "sit down". Hysterical, I know.

6. Its so just darn cute. Seriously, who doesn't want to watch a cute baby manipulate their chubby little hands? And it doesn't have to be hard, you can go to websites like Baby Sign Language to learn the real sign and buy their DVDs and books but if you don't know, just make it up! It doesn't really matter as long as your child and the people around them knows what it means!

signing my made up sign for lion ("roar!")

signing my logical sign for "monkey"

So maybe not have your kid do the entire chicken dance to get a cookie but I'm pretty sure if you were diligent with pairing that sign, he would get it. Just start signing throughout the day and then prompting your child to do it. Don't give him the item until he does it (even if you move his hands for him at first). Pretty soon, he won't need your help and when you say, "you want a cookie?" he will twist his little hands around to sign "cookie" and then be able to sign "cookie" without you asking him.  Try it out, it's a lot of fun!