Teaching sign language to babies

Yes, I do think that teaching sign language to babies is really helpful as research has shown babies and toddlers who can communicate using signs have higher I.Q as signing decreases frustration, helps babies talk sooner, enriches parents-child relationships and boosts babies intellectual development.

I taught my daughter some signs and its fun and useful to some extent. She knew how to sign for milk and other things, but I was able to read her body language and understand what she needed too, but I think it does help brain stimulation and it makes them think, so it cannot be bad.

When I shared this question with one of my friend she told me that "I think it will make my kid lazy and can become a problem with delayed speech. I had also faced this problem with my son. It was not exactly sign language but I used to understand whatever he wants or wanted to say, so he becomes lazy and did not try to speak anything and whatever he speaks it was not clear. We took him to the speech therapist at the age of 2 years and 7 months. He examined and told that he is absolutely okay, has just become lazy, so don't understand what he wants to say." After that I tried what the speech therapist said and unbelievably within next 3 months, he started speaking and now at the age of 3 years and 2 months, he speaks so much that he is one of the talkative kids in his play group.

After listening to her answer, I told her that "I do not think your child was lazy (to speak) and I strongly feel that in your child's case, it was not sign language that was in lieu of language development (delayed speech), but it was just that he reached his language (speaking/verbal) milestone at that age and it is quite normal." I told her that "every child is different and that they take their own sweet time to arrive at their milestone at that specific age.

So at last I would say as an answer to this question that gestures and body language are an integral part of communication and they are a real booster for language development and good communication skills for our babies.

I would strongly recommend use of gestures and body language to be encouraged in kids as young as possible. This always adds an edge to good communication skills.

So in order to make your child learn the sign language, you have to learn that first.

All kids do not learn sign language easily, so you will have to start it from the beginning only. Below is a youtube video link which inspired me to start this with my baby:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCUdDmb1Ttw

I am trying to teach my daughter words which we use daily and ABC's also.

Think it is working wonderfully, but start early with this. My daughter was taking time to grasp the signs initially but then it has been all well.

One more link for ABC's:

ABC song/ASL alphabet - American version

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMQHd1UBkeI

One more thing to remember in mind that keep showing the signs or the videos daily twice or thrice and slowly your baby will start learning the signs and of course you will also have to learn sign language to teach your baby. There is a website www.mindbites.com where they show how to make flashcards of sign language. You can also check this out for help.

Good Luck.........