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Baby Sign Systems
Baby signing (BS) is an augmentative communication approach developed for parents to use alongside speech with hearing preverbal infants. By providing babies with key word symbolic gestures, the aim is to provide infants with a means of communication prior to speech development. These gestures may emanate from the infant initially (spontaneous gesturing that is adopted by the parent for interpersonal use) or may be taught to the parent and infant in a more conventionalized way (e.g., through formal classes, DVD tuition, or online resources).
The rationale for BS stems from the premise that infants' symbolic development is in advance of their verbal communication skills. Thus, L. Acredolo and S. Goodwyn suggest that providing infants with BS leads to a diminution of frustration, and better mutual understanding ...
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