Baby's First Words

According to this article, baby signing, or teaching infants to give hand gestures to communicate before they develop their verbal skills, can open their world up by allowing them to make its needs known to its caretaker. Communication between the infant and parent reduces frustration because the infant can specify what it needs rather than the parent trying to guess why the child is upset. It makes sense that children would be able to communicate through sign language before they can speak because signing isn't based on abstract phonetic memorization, but a symbol representation that usually corresponds to the infant's visual world.

It seems that baby signing wouldn't have long term effects on verbal development (even though it increases their vocabulary when they first learn to speak) because babies who don't communicate through signing will eventually catch up in their own time. However, it makes me wonder what effect this may have on creating a more secure bond between the baby and its caretaker, and if this effect would make the baby a more emotionally secure adult. The parents interviewed in the article say that when their child gives a sign asking for something, they can react and help much more quickly than if they had to guess why their baby was upset. According to our book, while it varies from culture to culture, a parent's sensitivity and response to its child's needs play a large role in creating a secure bond. Because baby signing is relatively new, I suppose we'll have to wait for more research to know if there are any long term benefits to baby signing.