Baby Signs

Major Claims of Baby Sign Proponents

Baby sign programs cite a host of benefits that result from the use of baby signs, almost all of these claims originating from studies by American researchers Linda Acredolo and Susan Goodwyn, and Marilyn Daniels. The reported benefits fall into three general categories.

First, advocates of baby signs frequently point to reports that children exposed to ASL in Deaf, signing families often produce their first (signed) words earlier than children exposed to spoken languages only and reason that a similar “sign advantage” can be achieved by hearing children who are taught to communicate through symbolic gestures. Operating on the assumption that signs and gestures are easier to produce than spoken words, proponents of baby signs claim that they allow hearing children to begin communicating their wants, interests, and needs to their parents earlier than they otherwise would. Susan Goodwyn and her colleagues divided toddlers and their parents into three groups, instructing the parents in the sign training group to model and encourage use of symbolic gestures as much as possible, whereas parents in the verbal training group were instructed to teach their children word labels for things around them. A third, nonintervention control group received no instructions for either type of training. Children who received training in symbolic gesturing learned an average of 20.4 meaningful gestures between 11 to 30 months, more than toddlers without gestural training. Additionally, in a series of tests on vocabulary and other verbal development, the toddlers with enriched symbolic gesture exposure scored significantly [Page 72]higher than the control group for roughly the ages between 15 and 24 months. Goodwyn and her colleagues concluded that their study demonstrated convincing benefits of increased symbolic gestures for later verbal development. Similarly, Marilyn Daniels reported that hearing toddlers in an early childhood program who were taught signs scored higher than their nonsigning peers on a vocabulary test, even a year later, after they had entered kindergarten and ceased receiving sign training.

Second, baby sign websites and books are replete with testimonials from parents who report fewer tantrums and less communicative frustration for both parents and children once the family began learning baby signs. Greater communication is argued to also promote enhanced interactions and bonding between parents and children, with more episodes of joint attention. Baby signs may dramatically alter parents’ perceptions of preverbal children as conversational partners by helping them realize that their children are ready to communicate, despite their lack of spoken words. This change can lead parents to engage their children in conversation more often, thereby increasing child-directed speech and further propelling their children’s linguistic development.

...