Why would you want to teach your baby to use American Sign Language, or ASL?

Babies are intelligent. They have the potential to communicate long before they are physically able to produce words. By taking the time to teach your baby to sign, you give him the ability to communicate at a much younger age. You can teach him to sign when he is hungry, thirsty, wet, or hurting. Research indicates that teaching him to sign, and using sign language regularly will also help to increase his I.Q. significantly. So, where do you start?

The first signs that you will want to teach your baby are called need based signs. These signs help your baby communicate to you his current needs. Some of the common signs that are taught first are:

• More

• Milk

• Nurse

• Hungry

• Eat

• Cold

• Hurt

• Sleepy

• Diaper

Once you and your baby can communicate those signs you can teach him other words:

• Mommy

• Daddy

• Dog
• Thank you

• Please

• Bye

• I love you

You can teach him many other words and phrases that will help the two of you to communicate better.

Every young baby learns one sign readily. Have you ever seen a very young child wave "bye bye"? Of course! If they can learn to sign goodbye, they can learn any other sign, with patience and practice.

One of the easiest signs to teach your baby is "milk" or "nurse". I prefer to use separate signs for these words because it saves confusion later. We use a chest pat as the sign for nurse. The ASL sign for milk is holding the hand open, as if holding a cup and then closing the hand. You can see a great demonstration of this sign at American Sign Language.

Choose one sign to teach your baby at a time. For the purposes of this article we will use "milk". As you are giving your child milk make the sign for milk. Continue to sign this every time that you give the child milk. Over a period of time the baby will start to mimic your sign. Only use the sign for milk, never anything else. Once he picks up that there is a link between the sign and the milk, you can move on to the next sign. Continue signing regularly, using the words he knows often so that he does not forget them. Your child will recognize the signs that you make before he makes them on his own. Since you are teaching a hearing child, you should also say the word as you sign it.

This should be a fun activity between you and your baby. If you feel frustrated, or begin to be angry stop immediately! Teaching your baby to sign takes patience and time, but the rewards are incredible