Baby Jack is eleven months old, he can’t talk yet, but he knows what he wants and he wants it NOW, and if he doesn’t get it he’s going to start crying.  He might even scream.  Darn, it’s frustrating not to know what baby Jack wants.  His mother sees that he’s not happy and holds out his toy dog Floppy.  Jack sticks his lower lip out and makes an upside down smile.  His mother recognizes this face, it’s the one he makes right before he’s about to let out a wail.  “Wait, Jack, is this what you want?”  She holds up his blue blankie with the white teddy bears on it … he turns away.  Here come the tears.

Baby Jenna is eleven months old, she can’t talk yet, but she knows what she wants.  She reaches out and squeezes her hand several times… it looks a bit like she’s milking a cow.  Jenna watches her mother with anticipation and not a tear in sight.   “Oh, you want some milk, do you?”  Jenna’s mom squeezes her hand in the air, too, and then gives her daughter a bottle.  Jenna curls up and drinks her milk, happy and content.

Jenna’s day, to say nothing of her mother’s day, is filled with communication and smiles.  Sure she can get overtired or cranky and cry, but those times are far fewer than they are for babies who can’t communicate.

“If only my baby could talk, tell me what’s wrong, where it hurts, what she wants, where she wants to go or what she wants to eat.  If only my toddler could tell me when his diaper needs changing, or that he’s too hot or cold or that he wants more food.“

For those who say “if only” there’s good news.   Communication with your baby is possible now, thanks to several dedicated researchers who are sharing their knowledge with parents, caregivers and teachers across the USA.  When Joseph Garcia was a graduate student at Alaska Pacific University, he observed that babies of deaf parents could communicate much earlier than babies of hearing parents.   This knowledge propelled him into research and the development of his book, Sign with Your Baby, and a program, Sign2Me, designed to teach babies American Sign Language or ASL.  Garcia’s goal was to empower infants with expressive communication before they could speak. 

Similarly, twenty-two years ago two researchers discovered that hearing babies made gestures that helped them communicate long before they developed verbal language.  Linda Acredolo Ph.D., Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Davis studied her own child, documenting her gestures, and later, after years of research funded by the NIH, created BabySigns (books, videos and workshops) with her academic partner Susan Goodwyn, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology at California State University, Stanislaus.  Two years ago, BabySigns was revised to include ASL signs, as the authors realized the importance of learning a real language that is understood by others.  “We want to enable communication between babies and toddlers and their parents.  But if parents choose to use baby gestures, that’s okay.  We don’t want to alienate anyone by saying they only have to use ASL.”

Some parents may feel that if they teach their baby to sign, the child won’t talk.  The exact opposite is true.  When parents teach their babies to sign they also say the words.  So even when babies are not ready to speak, they can learn to make the sign and eventually connect it with the spoken word.  Babies and toddlers can learn  75-100 words that encompass their world: milk, more, mama, papa, dog, help, hurt, eat, water, sleep, love -- as well as phrases such as I love you, I need help, Let’s go, and Another story please.

According to both Garcia and Acredolo, babies and toddlers who learn to sign increase their verbal skills when they begin to talk.  There are many more benefits to teaching sign language to babies and those benefits, plus the feelings and opinions of teachers and parents will be shared in part two of this story.  Meanwhile, check out http://www.sign2me.com/ and http://www.babysigns.com/ for more information.

Ana signs 'more' to get more applesauce. Photo by Sign 2 Me.