Handy Expressions
A handy way for infants to communicate
Ever wonder why your child is crying?
Of course you do! The trouble is you have to go through the entire list:Food, milk, drink, nappy, too hot, too cold, or just needing a cuddle…
That's before you get to the serious stuff!
What if your little one could tell you why?
Now they can!Baby sign language is a way of introducing communication to infants before they can talk, enabling them to express their feelings, wishes and needs.
It was initially discovered by child development experts who found that infants brought up in a signing environment (usually because deafness in the family) were communicating with their parents by signing back long before they were able to talk. This in turn meant that infants brought up in signing environments relied far less on cries or screams to convey their message and communicated their needs with sign language, resulting in far less frustration and much happier babies.
By using simple signs for everyday vocabulary (eg: 'more', 'food', 'milk' etc), hearing babies are also able to enjoy earlier communication with parents, reducing childhood frustration and behavioural problems. It also reduces the frustration for parents by helping them to understand what baby wants.
Baby signing bridges a very wide gap, giving your child the ability to communicate their wishes and needs with visual clues (signs) before they can physically form spoken words, which also gives them a structure on which to build their development of vocabulary.
Baby sign language also helps babies make sense of the words that they hear, as words are introduced along with the signs. This means that as the signing vocabulary develops so too does the verbal vocabulary.
Signs are gradually dropped by the child once the even easier form of verbal communication (speech) is mastered - providing them (and their parents) with the perfect communication bridge.
There are numerous benefits seen in signing infants. Recent research suggests that properly introduced signing does NOT hamper speech development - and in a lot of cases will even encourage early speech.
Another recent find maintains that many babies who sign not only have a higher vocabulary and greater communication skills, but will also develop a greater IQ than that of their peers.
Many signing children will start school with the advantage of a greater ability to communicate with their friends and understand their teachers better.
One of life's vital skills is communication, so cultivating the ability to communicate effectively from an early age should lead to greater interaction and people skills in adult life. Signing with your child provides the perfect opportunity to get them used to interacting with others and builds a stronger bond between parents and infants, plus its great fun!
When Can I Start?
You can start signing with your infant from birth, and should expect them to begin to sign back at around 6-9 months, but it is possible to start signing at a later age and still see amazing results.At 6-9 months your child's motor skills develop, this is when they start to have good control of their hands, combined with the mental ability to communicate and understand the concept of vocabulary.