Sign language and baby talk

I watched in astonishment as my daughter-in-love locked eyes with her year-old child, listened intently and understood the baby’s urgent, garbled request. I wished I had been that good at interpreting my children at that age. Since I could not, I wish I had tried sign language as my sister’s families have done. They taught their children a few signs to use during the frustrating months before their bodies matured enough to allow them to facilitate speech.
Teaching babies to use sign language is a fairly new idea embraced by many young families.
Yet it is an old concept: Every baby teaches their parents innate baby signs. “When the kid is chasing you around the kitchen and putting up their hands you kind of get the idea that they want to get picked up,” my New York niece-in-love succinctly said.
Most children learn the sign for bye-bye and to push away when they want down. The baby sign language movement takes the concept a step further. “I taught them the basic signs for thirsty, hungry and pick me up,” the New Yorker said.
“I was surprised at how many times he was legitimately thirsty,” she said of her first born child, a son. “I would not have thought about giving him water as much if he wanted it, if it had not been for the sign.”
With her youngest – who is still months away from verbal skills – “I can say ‘What do you want’ and she will stop crying and tell me with the sign for drink, food or pick me up,” she said. “But I’m not the one you really need to talk to” she said referring me to my other niece-in-love whose child learned more than a couple dozen signs.
From birth, that baby girl both heard and saw language. As she sat in the high chair eating, her mother would sign ‘thirsty’ as she asked, “are you thirsty?” or signed ‘hungry’ and asked “are you hungry?” In time, the child learned to touch her hip for diaper change, to shake her head for NO and to make a grabbing sign for ‘more.’ At least that’s what my sister, the child’s grandmother says. The family was out of town for the week.
Sometimes she reflected the adult dilemma at the end of the meal and would sign, “all done” only to spy dessert a few minutes later and with a flurry of fingers sign, “I want more.”
Even when her mother read picture books, she showed her baby the signs for bird, dog, moon, flower, cat and so forth. Later, the child discovered the moon in the sky, pointed to it and signed ‘moon’ to her parents.”
“The sign for flower is sniffing,” the baby’s grandmother said and laughed as she remembered, “but she would blow out instead of sniff. She learned to blow her nose pretty well.”
The baby used signs to point out new things. While visiting a restaurant she saw a large, golden dragon on the wall. Fascinated, the child pointed it out to her mother, made a curved hand and moved it up and down in the air – her own, newly created sign word for the dragon.
As she switched to spoken words and sentences, her use of sign language began to fade and she learned to relish speaking words. After her mother showed her a peacock one morning, the little girl spent ours repeating the funny sounding word to her mother and giggling.
Using sign language as her first language has not interfered with her speech development, but rather – as many sign language for babies websites agree – it enhanced her comprehension of language and communication. And that is an advantage any child can use.