Teaching Your Baby Sign Language

Lesser explains that signing has made her life easier. If her children ask to get a balloon at the grocery store and they forget to say “please” and “thank you,” she is able to sign the reminder without yelling it across the store.

Infants and toddlers also feel more understood. Mealtime is easier because they can answer the question, “Do you want more?” A child can reply by signing the word more or finished, “as opposed to getting frustrated and throwing things off the highchair,” says Lesser.

Lesser emphasizes the importance of starting with four to six words such as: milk, more, eat, all done, please and thank you. As the child becomes comfortable and “fluent” with those few words, the parent can add a few more. The idea is to learn a little at a time, just like babies learn any language.

“The majority of signing children between the ages of 11 and 14 months begin using ‘sentences’ about 10 months earlier than is typical,” according to authors Michelle E. Anthony, M.A., Ph.D., and Reyna Lindert, Ph.D. in their book Signing Smart with Babies and Toddlers: A Parent’s Strategy and Activity Guide. “Children ages 6-18 months have an average of 25 signs and spoken words, compared to the developmental norm of three to five words. Signing children at 18 months have an average of 79 signs and 105 spoken words, compared to the developmental norm of 10-15 words.”

The biggest concern that parents have about teaching their baby ASL is that the child will sign instead of speak. According to Lesser and other researchers, the opposite is true. Signing seems to enhance a child’s ability to express ideas as he becomes more verbal. “Kids naturally drop the signing once they are able to communicate verbally, and it’s up to parents if they want to continue signing,” says Lesser.

Lesser began teaching ASL to her daughters when they were infants, and they both started signing at 10 months. “Kids don’t sign back simply to make conversation. They typically start signing when they feel they need to communicate something to you. Usually, their sign has something to do with eating.”

Gail McKay, founder of Creative Communications, has taught sign language to deaf children for over eight years. She explains that parents should say the word verbally as they use the sign so the child can pair up the concept. “There is a totally different approach to teaching a hearing baby as opposed to a deaf child who depends on the language to communicate,” says McKay. But she agrees that signing can be just as beneficial to hearing babies. “Deafness is a condition of isolation…the more people who use ASL the better.”

Schools and early learning centers have also picked up on this new approach to strengthening cognitive and linguistic skills. Leah Guthrie from the Bentwater Primrose School in Acworth says that ASL is a part of the curriculum. Primrose begins teaching babies ASL between 6 and 9 months and stops teaching when the child becomes verbal at 18 months. “We send home a kit for the parents with basic signs and pictures so they know what their baby is signing,” says Guthrie.