“If signing is not used for communication, it is unlikely that the child will become fluent,” Stevenson said. “It is like teaching your child to speak Spanish when you yourself do not speak it.”
TEACHING BABIES TO TALK USING SIGN LANGUAGE
BY LESLIE HARRIS O’HANLON
SPECIAL TO WEST HAWAII TODAY
When little Isabella Murray recently fell in her crib, banging her chin, she cried. But she also did something else. Like most 14-month-old children, Isabella isn’t talking much yet. However, she is learning to communicate, through sign language.
After she took her tumble, her mother, Elaine Murray, asked “are you hurt,” while giving the sign for hurt. Her daughter signed “hurt” back to her mother and touched her chin.
“Babies are far more advanced communications wise, but they have no speech capabilities,” Murray said, a Waimea resident who has been teaching her daughter signs since she was 6 months old. “It must be really frustrating for them.”
In the past five or so years, more parents of infants who do not have hearing problems have been teaching their children to use sign language. Psychologists Linda Acredolo and Susan Goodwyn published a study on the topic in 2000 that found several benefits to teaching babies to sign. Among the advantages was that babies who signed talked earlier than babies who did not sign. Also, children who learned sign language were able to put together more complex sentences than the babies who didn’t learn sign language. Acredolo and Goodwyn also published a book, “Baby Signs: How to Talk to Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk,” and started the BabySigns program, which emphasizes teaching babies simple signs for concepts that are common in their world, such as the sign for eat, drink, more and all done.
BabySigns uses mostly American Sign Language (ASL) signs, but some of the ASL signs are altered so that they work better for smaller hands, said Ranya Henson, who facilitates a BabySigns play group that meets twice a month at Tutu’s House in Waimea the second and fourth Wednesday of each month at 3:45 p.m.
“Babies understand a lot before they actually speak. So by teaching them signs they understand how conversations happen,” Henson said. “When they are ready to speak, language development snowballs. They learn how to communicate faster.”
Alyce Camero, a Waimea speech therapist, said that teaching babies sign language does not not hinder their ability to speak.
“People sometimes say that children won’t learn to talk if you use signs. But what typically happens is the child will use signs until she can say the word. Once she has the word, she may use the word and the sign together and then drop the sign,” Camero said. “Using sign language does not hinder oral language. It can be useful.”
Teaching babies signs helps them to communicate before they can speak, Camero said. This is because receptive language development, the ability to understand what is being said, comes much earlier than expressive language, the ability to speak.
“Kids can learn to signs and understand sign language earlier than they can speak,” she said. “You can teach signs at 6 months. Children normally don’t use words until a year.”
It is important, Henson noted, for parents to say the word along with the sign because this helps babies’ language development.
Another benefit the 2000 study found is that teaching babies signs eases their frustrations with trying to communicate. Instead of crying, whining and pointing, they can give a sign for what they want or need.
Erin Brown of North Kohala has been signing with her 10-month-old daughter Kilihea since she was 4-months-old. So far, her daughter understands the signs for “milk” and “kitty” especially well.
“When I give the sign for milk, she understands what that means,” Brown said. “She flaps her arms and kicks her legs.”
Importantly, teaching babies is yet another way for babies and their caregivers to spend quality time together.
“Any activity that encourages positive interaction between parent and child is beneficial to the development of the child, and teaching signs is such an activity,” Craig Stevenson, a pediatrician at the West Hawaii Community Health Center in Kealakekua. “My advice to parents interested in this activity is much the same as with spoken language: Teach carefully and consistently, teach adult speech,in this case ASL, do not let this activity interfere with acquiring verbal language, and above all be sure both the child and parent are having fun.”
Almost any child can learn to sign, Camero said. The only time when teaching signs to a baby is not appropriate is if that child doesn’t have the motor ability to use signs. Getting started with teaching babies to sign is straightforward.
“You can just read a book to learn major signs or go online,” Camero said. “There are a lot of websites that show you how to do it. You just have to start using it. It’s like learning any language. The more you use it, the more you are gong to learn.”
Parents can teach sign language to their baby at any time, but most babies do not sign back until eight to 10 months, Henson said. For some babies, they have to pass through gross motor development milestones, such as crawling or walking, before they take to signing. They can still understand though. The key for babies catching on is parents using the sign consistently.
“If signing is not used for communication, it is unlikely that the child will become fluent,” Stevenson said. “It is like teaching your child to speak Spanish when you yourself do not speak it.”