Baby Sign Language: Communicate Effectively With Your Baby Before They Can Speak

Baby Sign Language

There is a revolution taking place in the area of parent-infant communication, an exciting method of making the most of a parent's relationship with their child . This revolution is teaching baby sign language to infants before they are able to communicate using speech. This article will provide a very brief outline of this fascinating concept.

You are no doubt familiar with the sign language many deaf and hard of hearing people use to communicate. With baby signing the principle is the same, but the signs themselves are simplified and may involve other parts of the body in addition to the hands, for example opening and closing the mouth might be the sign for 'fish'.

A baby responds best to what he sees and what he can touch. This fact is the basis of the system. So, teaching baby sign language generally involves the use of familiar objects in order to get the message across. You associate a particular object or concept with a hand gesture or sign, e.g. holding a bottle of milk while performing the appropriate sign for the object. You repeat the process several times until the sign is learnt. It's simple, rewarding and great fun. It's recommended to start slowly using simple everyday words (milk, bed, teddy, etc.) and reinforce them by using the signs as often as you can.

Most babies can start to learn signing between the ages of 6 to 9 months, when they will have developed sufficient control over their hands to perform the gestures. As your baby gets older he or she may even be able to sign complete sentences. As with most things in life, practice makes perfect--repetition and plenty of encouragement form a central part of the process. However, it's important to remember not to push your baby too hard, be patient. If your baby starts viewing it as a chore rather than fun then they will cease being responsive to your teaching.

Teaching baby sign language is not difficult if you use the right resources. The deeper bond it allows between parent and infant is highly rewarding. Visit http://talkwithyourbaby.info. The site has a wealth of information, free resources and discount offers. Babyhood passes quickly, so don't put it off, get started today!

Baby Sign Language: Teaching Your Baby to Start Signing

Baby Sign Language

Why do Baby Sign Language
Babies start to develop the ability to understand words well before they are able to speak. This can be a frustrating experience for your baby, because they can understand a lot of what their parents are saying - but have no way of being able to communicate back except crying. Baby Sign Language is a way to teach your baby to communicate with you using their more developed gross motor skills. Signing to your baby is a bridge to normal speech and as your baby starts to develop the fine motor skills necessary for speech, you will start to see the signs discarded.

When to Start Signing
You can start doing baby sign language as early as you want, but you usually won't see much response until baby is over six months so that is a good age to start signing. If you start signing to baby at around six months, you will usually start to see baby signing back around 2-3 months later.

How to Get Started
Start with a small set of ten core signs, selecting things that are important or interesting to baby. Mommy, daddy, brother, sister, milk, dog, light, food, more, bath, and drink are popular first signs. After learning these signs, try to use them as much as possible while you are around baby, integrating them into your day-to-day interactions with baby.

Through repetition, baby will start to imitate the signs. At first the signs will be very vague approximations of the official sign. When you recognize baby doing any signing offer lots of encouragement. Where possible, give baby what they wanted to help them make the connection between doing the sign and the actual thing.

To learn your first few signs, you can take a baby sign language class, get a book, or just look at an online baby sign language dictionary. Most signs are pretty intuitive and designed to be easily learned.

How to Expand Baby's Vocabulary
As baby starts to learn the signs, you can gradually add more signs to your repertoire. At first it will be slow going, but baby will start to learn faster and faster. Some babies will develop vocabularies over 200 signs before they start to transition to speech. If baby enjoys learning signs, you can start incorporating picture books and flash cards to help baby enhance their vocabulary. Again, using signs frequently, repeating them, and encouraging baby's early efforts is key.

Baby Sign Language has a great set of FREE resources to help you teach your baby to start signing. On the site you will find resources including flash cards you can print out; a wall chart to help you learn your first few signs, and a Baby Sign Language Dictionary to help you expand your signing vocabulary. Best of all you can meet a community of signers and exchange tips and tricks to make signing fun.

Baby Sign Language: The Advantages Of Sign Language

Baby Sign Language

Sign language is not just a random collection of gestures... it is a full-blown language in its own right, complete with its own grammatical rules. Each country or region has its own sign language, as different from each other as English is from Spanish. Each version of sign language is somewhat linked to the spoken language in its region. For example, American sign language does share similarities with English, even though it is its own language.

Sign language is not based on sentences like English, but on phrases and ideas. When translating sign language into English, for example, some words will have a direct translation. Others find no adequate translation for the true meaning, just like translating Japanese to English, or English to Arabic.

The written history of sign language begins in France in the 18th century. Charles-Michel de l'Epee founded the first ever public school for deaf children. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet founded the first American school for the deaf in 1817, and his son, Edward Miner Gallaudet, founded the first and only liberal arts college in the world for the deaf in 1857. In 1864, its name became Gallaudet University, and it remains the only such school of higher learning in the world today.

In any sign language, the words are made in gestures and expression, rather than sounds and letters. Expressions are just as important as the gestures. They build upon the meaning of the gestures to convey more information than the gestures could alone.

In some ways, sign language is better than the spoken word... communication can occur in areas where speaking is not appropriate (in places of worship or while hunting), not allowed (in recording studios or other places where speaking is disruptive) or physically impossible (underwater, or in places that are too loud to hear speech).

The advantages of knowing sign language in addition to a spoken language are many. Communication becomes possible on many levels with the deaf community, with other people either hearing or not in any of the above situations, as well as many more.

Being able to serve the deaf community may also increase your business. Approximately 22 out of every 1000 persons is deaf or hearing impaired.

You may even meet a new best friend that you never would have tried to communicate with before you learned sign language.

Teaching your baby sign language can decrease frustration for both you and your baby, and increase parent-child bonding. The possibilities are endless when you increase your means of communication.

Basic sign language is easy to learn, for more information visit us at BasicSignLanguage.net.

Article Source: Marie Wilson

Baby Sign Language: Is Baby Sign Language What You Really Need?

Baby Sign Language

The early communication techniques between parents and their babies are very difficult at the beginning for both parties. Babies are not able to tell what they want and neither to ask for something that would make them feel better. Parents are hence very stressed and concerned about their babies' needs, especially at the early age of nursery. For this reason experts have come up with an effective idea that is meant to ease the first stage of communication between new parents and their little children.

Baby sign language is a special method by which parents can implement some words and gestures into the life of their little ones. The technique by which baby sign language can be taught to children is called modeling and it consists of a mixture of words and gestures so that the baby would get used to recognizing some of the signs. For example, parents are advised to say the word of the action that they are about to do for their babies out loud before starting doing it. Hence, before eating they can say "eat" or before sleeping "sleep". By this method children will get used to assimilating the words with the gestures or actions and will soon be able to recognize the specific actions.

Specialists think that this method is very effective, as gradually, the child will get accustomed to the specific words and to match them with the corresponding actions that they express.

Parents are highly advised to use the baby sign language with their children and they are likely to see notable improvement in their babies' behavior. This special language is considered to be the preparatory step taken before the actual process of learning more and more difficult words. Studies have shown that children respond to this technique very well and that they behave better once they have learned these initial sign rules.

There are parents who fear of using it because they consider this can affect their babies' later process of learning real words. Experts argue by explaining that the efficiency of sign language is tested and that there were no cases of altering further learning processes by it.

The age that babies should be in order to be able to respond to this technique is six months. A six month baby will memorize the gestures that his parents do after naming the specific action to be done. Studies show that the average age at which babies will also be able to imitate these gestures is seven or eight months. At this age children are aware of the special signs that denote certain actions.

Parents do not need to have a thorough knowledge of the techniques used in baby sign language, as they may invent their own gestures and they may choose the key moments in which to make those gestures and say the words. It is a matter of imagination and many parents consider it to be fun both for them as for their babies.

Article Source: Marie Wilson

Baby Sign Language: Ten Tips for Learning and Teaching Baby Sign Language

Baby Sign Language

Teaching even hearing babies sign language seems to be the rage in recent years and for good reason. Communicating in sign language is fun and natural as babies instinctively use body gestures in early communication.

A quick search at Google reveals that there are many tools available to support you in learning and teaching sign language. What I want to share today are ten tips to keep in mind as you move through this journey of 'talking' with your baby. Ideally, these tips will encourage and remind you that learning a new language is an ongoing process and one well worth enjoying!

1. Start signing to your baby as early as possible. Sometime around six months of age your baby will start holding your gaze for several seconds or more. This is prime time to introduce simple signs. Your child will be enchanted and you will find it really adds to bonding with your baby.
2. Be simple and intuitive in your signing. 'First signs' correlate very well to 'first words'. It only makes sense that these signs demonstrate things meaningful to your baby. Signs for milk, more, eat, done/finished and sleepy are all one action signs that are used frequently and learned quickly.
3. Remember, just like verbal words, your baby will understand signs correctly before she begins to make signs. Applaud approximations, physical coordination is an ongoing process too, so watch for subtleties in movement and ask your baby for confirmation that they are signing.
4. Spend a little time each day practicing signs yourself. You do not have to be a fluent signer to start teaching your baby to communicate effectively. The beauty of this language is that you can effectively both learn it at the same time... one sign and one day at a time.
5. Use picture books. It's never too early to introduce books into your baby's life. Get simple books about objects, animals, colors, feelings, etc. and learn the signs so you can demonstrate them as you say and show them. Another great idea in addition to picture books is to get a set of flashcards.
6. Smile LOTS! One thing I have noticed with parents who are new at using sign language is that sometimes they focus more on getting the sign right than on the joy of communicating with their baby. Sometimes when confronted with our own learning curve we feel awkward and maybe a bit foolish. I advise you here to take your cues from your baby. You will notice he is totally in the joy of the experience no matter how closely he approximates the action. Follow his lead!
7. Talk, laugh or sing as you sign and be sure to make eye contact. Have fun with this and remember to emphasize the word you're signing, "Do you want more applesauce?"
8. Add signs quickly. Don't worry about going too fast for your baby. It's likely that her pace may in fact be quicker than yours so commit yourself to learning new signs daily and easing them immediately into your conversation. As you begin to recognize how many signs mimic their meaning you will find learning them comes quickly and easily. For instance, the sign for baby is simply the motion of rocking an imaginary baby in your arms.
9. Sign often. Don't make signing an event that you save for your child just at certain times. The easiest way to learn a second language is to simply incorporate it in to your daily activities. Sign language is a language, let it live!
10. Prepare for the unexpected. Your child will surprise and delight you with their awareness and creativity. Whether it's expressing a sign so dramatically that you almost missed recognizing that they were signing or as in the case of my friend-- His 14 month old was furiously signing 'ball' when they were out for a walk at the park. Dad and Mom only saw the dog and kept trying to correct their little guy by showing him the sign for 'dog'. Finally the dog moved so that they could see what their son saw all along, the dog was hiding a ball.
    

Keeping these ten tips in mind will ensure that you and your baby easily succeed in learning to effectively communicate with sign language. You will know what's on their mind up to a year earlier than you would have waiting for verbal words to occur. Now you just have the challenge of the 18 month old remembering a sign they were shown once two weeks earlier when you read the book about the 'pig' and now they're begging you to read that book... only problem is, you were not the parent that showed them that sign and you have no clue. I promise... if you're not careful they will leave you in the dust!

Article Source: Mary K Weinhagen

Baby Sign Language: Some of the reasons why you might want to try it

Baby Sign Language

Most mothers intuitively know many of their babies needs and
desires, but have you ever considered communicating with your
baby using sign Language?

Here are some of the reasons why you might want to try it, and what you
Can expect if you do.

1. You can use language to communicate with your baby

before they can talk (sign language).

2. If your baby can actually use simple signs to communicate to you

it makes them feel better. (they have communicated and been

understood)

3. In early childhood development, using sign language develops

the brain and can create higher I.Q..

4. Babies develop the muscles in their hands before they develop

those required for speech

5. It helps prevent tantrums - more peaceful and happy home.

You can begin teaching your baby sign language anytime,
but the best time to begin sign language with your baby is between 6-8 months.

Once you can hold eye contact with your baby and keep her attention
for at least 7 seconds, you could begin with a simple sign for something
that baby is very familiar with - milk for example.

The sign for milk is: a closed fist them you open the fist and then close it again.
When baby wants milk, you have the bottle in one hand and do the sign with
The other hand, saying milk.

Baby may not respond if you start earlier than 6-8 months
but she IS listening and watching. Research shows that babies that are exposed to and
use sign language, talk earlier, and have a larger speaking vocabulary. Learning and using sign language does not take up more time, in fact it is a game that you and baby will enjoy and make the time together more fun.

The end result could be amazing...

Article Source: Heather Robillard

Baby Sign Language: Why Use Baby Sign Language

Baby Sign Language

Before babies are taught by parents to speak, they begin communicating through sign language. Of course without a guide to reference what the signs mean from baby to parent it is a struggle. The communication needs to be two way. Initially biology and instinct lead the way. Your new born will indicate what they need through a series of cries. In order to start communicating it is our job to learn from baby. The first building block to sign language is nurture. The feeding and protection demonstrated by parents to their babies is essential to communication. When baby realizes that warm soothing tones of your voices are providing care and attention then a strong trust bond is established.

The intellectual development runs roughly in the beginning months along the following time frame. The reflex stage starts from birth to two months and babies tend to engage in simple reflex activities such as grasping and sucking. Babies evolve to primary circular reactions next. This involves stereotyped repetition such as opening and closing fingers. These early stages are baby's signals to parents that they are becoming receptive to what's going on around them. Around six months, typical activities and sounds include vocalization with intonation. His / Her own name recognition and responds to voices by turning the head and eyes. Babies are also able to distinguish between happy and unhappy tones about now.

It is at this point that they are intellectually able to receive sign language and implement it into daily life. Step by step and with practice the learning goes on. From signing hunger to "I'm cold" the sign language gathers momentum. Once baby reaches twelve months then they can generally use a few words with meaning. Although the words may not be complete. He / She will understand basic instructions, particularly with physical or vocal cues are used as part of the instruction. The social implications of speaking will be realized at this point too. So they commence the exchange of speech with those around them, usually on a one to one basis. Sign language and speech are used through out peoples lives. However the significance of the early adoption of sign language maybe overlooked in parenting. It is natural for parents to want the best for their children. It is good judgment on their part to use techniques which are advantage to both themselves and babies. After all in a perfect scenario babies signal their needs without bursting eardrums and causing unrest. Instead simply nurture and develop the biological techniques given to us all by mother nature to our mutual advantage.

The importance of baby sign language is straight forward. Once the communication is two way with similar signs then communication is made easier. Not only in the first year of development. But in the years after too. The principle is to get the child to rationalize it's needs through it's signing so that it's requirements are met easily. It is thought that children who have used baby signing with their parents have an advantage socially and intellectually.

Sign language for babies is their natural language before learning the power of speech. Signing with your baby offers an opportunity to progress your baby's learning from an early stage. Read my article and visit my site to learn more!

Article Source: Chris Wethered