August 2011

Modeling Baby Sign Language

by Mey Lau on August 26, 2011

This beautiful boy is Marilyn's baby.

You’ve worked on the signs for months, but still baby isn’t signing back. You notice those little eyes looking intently at your hand signing milk, but the most response you are getting is an open mouth ready for the next bite. Sound familiar? Don’t be discouraged! Though you may feel like a BSL teaching failure, chances are good that she is understanding the signs long before she has the fine motor skills to mimic them.

 

Your can help develop those motor skills and encourage her signing through modeling. Teaching baby sign language through modeling involves shaping your little one’s hands in order to help them make the sign while you repeat the sign’s meaning and offer context such as giving a bottle of milk after you help baby open and close a fist (the sign for milk).

 

To get the most out of model teaching, consider changing your perspective. Position yourself behind baby; teaching with baby in your lap, for example. This sounds odd, but it will feel more natural for both you and baby to make a sign while facing the same direction. It is easier to shape baby’s hand within your own when the hands are aligned. You’ll be putting things into baby’s perspective rather than placing baby in the role of onlooker.

 

And as always, continue to teach signs in context. Sign language is a concrete visual cue to an abstract spoken word, but without some further definition baby learns that the sign and word go together and not what the sign and word actually mean. It makes sense then that we work on the sign for eat during mealtime and the sign for diaper during a diaper change. Remember, you can go ahead and communicate a sign before, during and after an activity.

 

Just like babies understand verbal language before they can participate in the activity, they will understand the signs before they start mimicking them. It is tempting to become frustrated with this stage, but it is a natural step and progression to the learning process. It is also not uncommon for baby to first grasp onto one sign and, in the beginning, use that sign for everything. More is an easy first sign, and one that babies tend to master and then turn to for every request. Continue to demonstrate and model your five starter signs in context rather than focusing on correcting your baby and you’ll see more signs enter the vocabulary.

 

Sometimes as parents we become so goal-driven on our child’s development, so attached to measuring milestones, that we forget that learning and teaching should be fun. Playing is your baby’s most constructive learning method. If your child isn’t interested in storytime signing, but loves to splash, practice signs in the bathtub. Be patient, persistent and have fun with those little fingers while they are still small enough to mold in your hands.

Don’t forget that modeling is just one of many tools to guide your child in a learning process. Continue to work contextually, use visual aids such as baby sign language flash cards and enlist the help of family and friends to reinforce signing.

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Sign Language for Babies Can Make Babies Easier!

by Mey Lau on August 1, 2011

Babies are born ready to communicate.  So why do they just eat, sleep and cry?  Because their motor control has not caught up with their desire to express themselves!  Most babies (thank goodness!) are born knowing how to breathe and swallow and cry.  They have control over very little else about their bodies.

To talk, babies must develop fine motor control of their vocal cords.  They begin to get intelligible, intentional words at some point between 9 and 15 months old on average.  Lots of things can affect that time line and push it later.  Temperament, genetics, illness, stress, older siblings, bilingual influences are just a few examples.  Getting enough language to be able to express ideas like “I’m hungry” or “my stomach hurts” or “it’s too cold in here” can take a child more than two years to express with spoken language.  So, most babies have a year or two of frustrations because of their lack of s fundamental expressive language.

Gross motor skills take much less time begin significant development.  The ability to push, pull, grab, and otherwise move hands and arms are well within the abilities of most 6-12 month olds.

Children who learn to use these gross motor skills to meet their own expressive language desires experience less frustration!  That’s right, Baby Sign Language is a great way for small children to express their needs and desires before they could possibly learn to talk.

Before medical school, I trained as an American Sign Language interpreter.  Seven or so years later, when our first son was born, my husband and I decided to see if he could learn some signs.  We started with “milk.”  When he was about four months old (though I now know you can start younger) we would wrap a huge hand around his little one and make the sign for milk with him and then immediately feed him.  It didn’t take long for him to approximate that sign when he was hungry.  Oh, he would still cry!  But as soon as he had our attention he would stop crying and start signing.

Since that time, we’ve had three more sons.  They each have different temperaments and personalities, but they have all learned signs in the first few months of life that have eased our communication.

Baby Sign Language won’t cure colic.  It won’t change a baby’s personality.  It will help you understand better what your baby wants.  It will teach your child they can count on you to figure out what she wants.  Even better, BSL can help your child learn, from a very young age, to ask for things respectfully!

Teach great habits.  Use BSL to model respect for your baby’s needs.  Use BSL to teach your baby to ask for things with a “please” and then respond with a “thank you!”

Dr. G (Deborah Gilboa, MD) is a board certified family physician, mother of four and professional parenting speaker and writer who works with parents to help them raise children they can respect and admire. She is also fluent in American Sign Language. To learn more about Dr. G visit http://www.AskDoctorG.com or on Twitter @AskDocG

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