First of all, I would like to acknowledge that within the literature, there is some debate about the benefits of signing with your baby, and even less with a focus on Australian sign language. There is currently a lack of robust research in this area for typically developing children. However, there is quite a bit of research into the benefits of using visual cues (or key word signing) for children with additional or diverse needs.

Within this post, I am drawing on my professional knowledge as a Teacher of the Deaf, Early Childhood Educator and Auslan Interpreter, and making inferences about the benefits of baby sign language from my studies and personal and professional experience. I welcome healthy debate about this topic and hope that more research can be done in this area to better inform families. I’m not going to reference here, because, quite frankly, I have two small children and not the time. If that’s something that is important to you, please let me know and I can send you a bibliography of all the reading I have done over the years :)

Now – the nitty gritty.

There are a number of benefits of learning baby sign language:

1) improved parent-child bond

2) earlier communication

3) clearer communication

4) larger vocabulary

5) better literacy outcomes

 

Let’s look a little closer at each of these…

1) Improved parent-child bond

This may sound far fetched, but if you are dedicating time to build skills to communicate with your child, you are dedicating time to connecting with them. And when you can share in each others interests through effective communication, you are going to be closer. Communication is important for all relationships, including with your baby.

 

2) Earlier communication

Babies naturally use gesture to communicate from about 10 months old. Clapping, pointing, reaching are all gestures that communicate a need or connection. Most parents, when a baby claps, will reciprocate and smile, fulfilling the babies desire to connect. Parents will generally label objects that a baby points to, fulfilling their request. And when a baby reaches up to a parents, most of the time they will pick them up without thinking about the communication involved. Adding signs to your interaction simply adds more structure and more tools to what is already there for your baby. And remember, babies can understand far more than they can communicate, so giving them signs to help them get what’s inside out, is very satisfying.

 

3) Clearer communication

When babies are learning to talk, they will make verbal attempts, often sounding like grunts, or squarks. Providing your baby with sign gives them an additional tool to clarify what they are talking about and express themselves before the fine motor skills required for speech have developed. Even when your little person starts building their vocabulary, speech won’t be clear for some time, so signs will help clarify what is being said.

 

4) Larger Vocabularies

This is a tricky one. There are some studies that support this as a finding – babies who learn to sign as infants had larger vocabularies at age 3. However, it was a small sample size and there were other factors that could have contributed. That being said, drawing on other knowledge of language development there are a couple things that could be at play here: having a greater awareness of language from a younger age speeds up the process, putting children ahead from the very beginning. Signing with babies has been shown to help children isolate words from speech, which helps them develop language faster/earlier. Again, an early start means things happen faster.

 

5) Better literacy outcomes

Literacy outcomes are directly linked to vocabulary. Children with stronger vocabularies have better literacy outcomes. It’s just what the research suggests. So, if we know that signing helps babies communicate earlier, and helps children build larger vocabularies, then it will inevitably support their literacy learning and therefore they will achieve better literacy outcomes.

I also believe (and I haven’t been able to find any research on this) that learning sign for babies makes them better communicators overall as it teaches them alternative ways of communicating… giving them a bigger toolbox if you will. More options if they are not being understood to communicate effectively.

There is also some evidence to suggest that learning baby sign language will lessen tantrums. Again, tantrums for young children can often be linked to a lack of communication, the inability to express their thoughts of feelings, so providing them with a tool to communicate earlier and clearer, it makes sense that signing will ease tension and lessen tantrums.

Well, that’s it from me. Thank you for reading my first blog post. If you have any questions or topics that you’d like me to explore, please shoot me an email.

HAPPY SIGNING!

– Meg –

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