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Baby sign language From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Baby sign language is the use of sign language in order to communicate with infants and toddlers. While infants and toddlers have a desire to communicate their needs and wishes, they lack the ability to do so clearly because the production of speech lags behind cognitive ability in the first years of life.[1] According to Gallaudet University, both hearing babies and deaf babies use “pre-linguistic gestures,” which is one of the first stages in developing ASL skills.[35] Proponents of baby sign language say that this gap between desire to communicate and ability often leads to frustration and tantrums.[2][3] However, since hand–eye coordination develops sooner than acquisition of verbal skills, infants can learn simple signs for common words such as "eat", "sleep", "more", "hug", "play", "cookie", and "teddy bear" before they are able to produce understandable speech.[4] Contents •	1 Behavioral research •	2 Developmental research •	3 Research controversy •	4 Practice •	5 In popular culture •	6 See also •	7 References •	8 External links

Behavioral research In an article in the British Psychological Society's The Psychologist [5] Gwyneth Doherty-Sneddon has considered in detail the theoretical bases behind the growth of this phenomenon and some of the claims made by its supporters.[6] As Doherty-Sneddon points out, so-called "baby signing" is not entirely new. Variants have been used by speech and language therapists for decades with children who have impairments to their speech, their cognitive abilities, or both.[7] It is widely recognized that communication is at the heart of child development, be it cognitive, social, emotional or behavioral.[8] While baby signing promoters claim various benefits verified in experimental research, there is in fact a dearth of research. An American team led by Drs. Linda Acredolo and Susan Goodwyn has been responsible for driving research into the effects of baby signing on child development. Their extensive research in determining the benefits of baby sign language and determining if its use would delay speech development in children, has opened many doors in this field as well as provided answers to many questions. Their study involving 11-month-old children was the key to these answers. The children were assigned into two groups in this study; the first group consisted of children that used Baby Sign Language and the second group consisted of children that did not use Baby Sign Language. Up until the age of three, the children’s speech and language development was monitored. Results showed that the average scores of children in the study that were in the group that used Baby Sign Language were found to be higher than the control group who did not use Baby Sign Language. By the age of twenty-four months, the signing children had a developmental advantage of three months over the non-signing children. By the time these signing children reached the age of thirty-six months, this advantage had increased dramatically. The advantage had now increased from a three-month developmental advantage to an equivalent twelve-month advantage in their overall language skills and comprehension by the age of thirty-six months. [9] They also propose[10][11] that those taught to sign reap such rewards as: •	larger expressive and receptive oral-language vocabularies •	more advanced mental development •	a reduction in problematic behavior like tantrums resulting from frustration •	improved parent–child relationships. The mechanisms underlying these benefits are proposed to include: •	an increased number of episodes of joint visual attention during interactions between parents and toddlers, known to be associated with improved language skills •	empowering the infant to focus the topic and context of conversation •	the discussion and clarification of concepts •	added practice with the symbolic function. Doherty-Sneddon claims a key issue is ensuring that sufficient and appropriately designed research is available to back the claims made in relation to baby signing. A literature review concluded that although benefits were reported in 13 of 17 studies, various methodological weaknesses leave the evidence unconfirmed.[12] Certainly, research into the effects of baby signing needs better control groups, such as children who are involved in equally interesting and fun activities based around adult and child language interaction, but not baby signing. Volterra et al. (2006) [13] conclude enhanced gesture input for hearing children is a catalyst for gesture acquisition, and especially the use of representational form and hence symbolic communicative function. They add that this enhancement is short-lived (to between 12 and 15 months of age). Doherty-Sneddon argues, however, that this timescale represents only a general norm. The enhancement and advantage is far more extended in the many toddlers who do not speak until well after their second birthdays. Doherty-Sneddon concludes by arguing there are three different levels of support for the benefits of baby signing: •	indicative, if not evidentially strong, evidence from baby signing research; •	related evidence from deaf sign and hearing gesture/language research; •	compelling anecdotal support from families who have embraced the approach. Developmental research Joseph Garcia, an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter and a leading proponent of use of ASL in communicating with infants and toddlers, began with his graduate thesis in 1986, an analysis of the role sign language could play in early childhood language acquisition. His research indicated babies who are exposed to signs regularly and consistently at six to seven months of age can begin using signs effectively by the eighth or ninth month.[14] Research by Bonvillian & Folven indicates that children raised in a signing environment produce their first signs at a mean age of 8.2 months, whereas Capute et al. found a mean age of 11.3 months for the production of the first word in speaking children. This acquisition advantage has been found to extend to multi-word and multi-sign milestones as well. Signing children acquired 10 sign vocabularies at a mean age of 13.1 months, compared with 10 word vocabularies at a mean age of 15.1 months for speaking children. Milestones of 50 signs and 50 words were acquired at mean ages of 18 months and 19.6 months respectively.[15][16] Two-sign combinations were first produced at a mean age of 17.1 months, while two-word combinations were first produced between 18 and 24 months. Acquisition of morphology or inflection was not found to differ greatly between signing and speaking children.[17] In 1998, a program was conducted at A. Sophie Rogers Infant-Toddler Laboratory School in Ohio State University by Kimberlee Whaley. Infants as young as 9 months old and their teachers began to learn to use some signs from the American Sign Language to communicate with each other. The program was not intended to teach American Sign Language, rather to use signs to communicate effectively. The program found that children would use the signs they learned in the classroom at home. Another finding indicated that girls use signs more than boys.[18] Research controversy Researchers have suggested the possibility of parents and experimenters being overly liberal in attributing sign or word status to early attempts at communication by children.[19] There is not a universal consensus on the criteria for differentiating a child's sign or word from a more simple gesture or vocalization. Large differences in acquisition arise when only signs that label objects rather than request objects are considered. In this case the mean age of first sign production becomes 12.6 months and is more comparable with the mean age of first word production in speaking children (11.3 months).[15] Unfortunately, because babies cannot express their thoughts and feelings very well, it’s hard to collect data on whether or not the babies understand the signs they’re using, or if they’re simply mimicking the adult trying to teach them. If they adult isn’t consistent with using the signs, the baby has less of a chance of committing the signs to memory and really using them.[37] It has also been found that children sometimes produce a combination of a pointing gesture and a spoken word earlier than they would produce a spoken two-word combination.[20] As not all studies are uniform in accepting or disqualifying pointing gestures as signs, this can also lead to discrepancies depending on how the research is carried out. Additionally, two possible explanations have been suggested for the differences shown in language acquisition between speaking and signing children.[21] Multiple Timing Mechanism Under this theory, separate developmental mechanisms would control vocabulary and syntax development. Earlier maturation of the visual system as compared with the oral system would result in the first sign being easier to produce vs. the first word. This would also allow for the separate development of vocabulary and syntax. Unitary Timing Mechanism This developmental mechanism would be activated at the start of language learning and would result in a relatively fixed amount of time between language acquisition milestones. Alternatively, a unitary mechanism could activate at the same time in all children, irrespective of the onset of language learning. Environmental or peripheral factors, such as language modality or differences in a language's morphology and syntax could explain the differences between acquisition milestones in speaking and signing children. Practice Parents and caregivers can sign to babies beginning at birth (using signs for simple ideas like "milk" and "more"). Comprehension on the part of the baby can begin at six months, and the children can begin producing signs themselves around 10 months. There have been studies to show that, even by increasing the use of gesture, not necessarily use of a sign language (such as ASL) can increase the richness of a child’s linguistic development and speed future processing.[22] Advanced Gesture through Interaction with Parent[22] Goodwyn, Acredolo & Brown (2000) have investigated the effects of instructing parents to encourage gesture use on language development. There were three groups studied. The "gestural training group" parents were given a set of 8 toys and told what gestures would be used with each toy. They were also encouraged to create gestures or use isolated ASL signs with their children; parents were presumably not native signers. The most interesting point seems to be that the Gestural Training Group may have small but reliable advantages in early language milestones other than age of the first word: •	"enhanced symbolic gesturing seemed to benefit Gesture Training infants’ receptive and expressive language development." •	The evidence helps to alleviate previous notions that gesture or sign language might interfere with or slow down language development. Case studies have also been done to see what the effects of bilingual exposure can do to help in language acquisition and progress. This specific case study was done with Marco, an Italian hearing child of deaf parents.[22][23][24] Hearing Children Exposed to Spoken & Signed Input (Capirci et al. 1998) 2002 investigated the transition from gesture to sign in a case study of an Italian, hearing, bimodal, bilingual child. Marco was "a bilingual hearing child of deaf parents exposed to sign and [oral] language from birth". Though both parents were deaf, they used both Italian Sign Language (LIS) and spoken Italian, at some times simultaneously. Marco was also regularly enrolled in a day care with Italian-speaking peers. Gesture was considered anything that a hearing (Italian) monolingual child had also been observed producing, whereas LIS was only considered in use if it resembled an adult speaker's LIS or a simplified sign, as judged by a native signer. Interesting Points: •	Under these criteria, Marco did not appear to have a "sign advantage." "Sign advantage" refers to the hypothesis that children who learn sign language and spoken language simultaneously will reach early linguistic milestones more rapidly in sign than in speech. •	Differences appeared in Marco's use of deictic and representational gestures as compared to those of monolingual children. •	"While Marco used proportionately more representational than deictic gestures at both comparison points, monolingual children produced deictic gestures much more frequently than representational gestures." •	He was able to use representational gestures more comfortably and practically, showing that "exposure to sign language may enhance a children’s appreciation of the representational potential of the manual modality; this may, in turn, generalize to gesture use." •	Marco differed from all the studied monolingual peers in that he was able to combine and use two representational gestures. Common Myths •	Teaching babies sign language delays speech.[37] •	It will be too complex of a concept for babies to understand. [37] •	Educators don’t support teaching hearing children sign language. [37] In popular culture Baby sign language was a plot element in the movie Meet the Fockers, where Jack (Robert De Niro's character) had taught his grandson "Little Jack" sign language. The twins that portrayed Little Jack (Bradley and Spencer Pickren) learned sign language from watching Signing Time! videos.[25] See also 5.	Child development 6.	Language acquisition 7.	Signing Time! 8.	Manual babbling References 1.	^ Loncke, F., Bonvillian, J. & Dooley, T. "in preparations- Applications of the Simplified Sign System". 2012. 2.	^ Garcia, Joseph. "Baby Sign Language Research." Sign2Me. Northlight Communications, Inc., 2010. Web. 23 Sept. 2010. . 3.	^ Summary of the Benefits of Signing. Signing Time! Two Little Hands Productions, 2006. Web. 23 Sept. 2010. . 4.	^ "Benefits for Babies Using Baby Sign Language". Babies-and-Sign-Language.com. Archived from the original on 7 April 2007. Retrieved 2007-03-27. 5.	^ Cesafsky M. J. (2009). Baby Sign Language: Hindering or Enhancing Communication in Infants and Toddlers? 1-29. Retrived from http://www2.uwstout.edu/content/lib/thesis/ 2009/2009cesafskym.pdf 6.	^ "The great baby signing debate". The British Psychological Society. 3 April 2008. Archived from the original on 12 July 2010. Retrieved 2010-07-19. 7.	^ Doherty-Sneddon, G., "The great baby signing debate", The Psychologist, Vol. 21, Part 4, April 2008, pp300-303 8.	^ Clibbens, J., Powell, G.G. & Atkinson, E. (2002). Strategies for achieving joint attention when signing to children with Down's syndrome. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 37(3), 309–323 9.	^ Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 10.	^ Administrator. "Benefits of Baby Sign Language". Toddler interpreting. Retrieved 7 November 2012. 11.	^ Acredolo, L.P., Goodwyn, S.W., Horobin, K. & Emmons, Y. (1999). The signs and sounds of early language development. In L. Balter & C. Tamis-LeMonda (Eds.) Child psychology (pp.116–139). New York: Psychology Press 12.	^ Goodwyn, S., Acredolo, L. & Brown, C.A. (2000). Impact of symbolic gesturing on early language development. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 24, 81–103 13.	^ Johnston, J., Durieux-Smith, A. & Bloom, K. (2005). Teaching gestural signs to infants to advance child development. First Language, 25, 235–251 14.	^ Volterra, V. Iverson, J.M. & Castrataro, M. (2006). The development of gesture in hearing and deaf children. In B. Schick et al. (Eds.) Sign language development. New York: Oxford University Press 15.	^ "Dr. Joseph Garcia". Stratton/Kehl Publications, Inc.. Retrieved 2008-03-19. 16.	^ a b Bonvillian, John D.; Raymond J. Folven (1987). The onsent of signing in young children. Paper Presented at the Fourth International Symposium on Sign Language Research, Lappeenranta, Finland. 17.	^ Capute, Arnold J.; Frederick B. Palmer, Bruce K. Shapiro, Renee C. Wachtel, Steven Schmidt and Alan Ross (1986). "Clinical Linguistics and Auditory Milestone Scale: Prediction of cognition in infancy". Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology 28: 762–71. 18.	^ Orlansky, Michael D.; John D. Bonvillian (1985). "Sign Language Acquisition: Language development in children of deaf parents and implications for other populations". Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 31: 127–43. 19.	^ "Teaching Infants to Use Sign Language". Ohio State University. Archived from the original on 21 December 2008. Retrieved 2008-11-09.[dead link] 20.	^ Pettito, Laura A. (1988). Frank S. Kessel. ed. "Language" in the pre-linguistic child. The development of language and language researchers. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. pp. 187–221. 21.	^ Goldin-Meadow, Susan; Marolyn Morford (1985). "Gestures in early child language: Studies of deaf and hearing children". Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 31: 145–76. 22.	^ Meier, Richard P.; Elissa L. Newport (1990). "Out of the Hands of Babes: On a possible sign advantage in language acquisition". Language 66 (1): 1–23. 23.	^ a b c Schick, Marschark, Spencer; Iverson, Jana M., Castrataro, Marianna (2005). Advances in the Sign Language Development of Deaf Children. Cary, NM, USA: Oxford University Press. pp. 46–70. 24.	^ Capirci, Iverson, Montanari, & Volterra (2002). 25.	^ Capirci, Montanari & Volterra (1998). 26.	^ http://www.signingtime.com/forums/showpost.php?p=20499&postcount=117 27.	^ http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,998221,00.html 26. Cesafsky M. J. (2009). Baby Sign Language: Hindering or Enhancing Communication in Infants and Toddlers? 1-29. Retrived from http://www2.uwstout.edu/content/lib/thesis/ 2009/2009cesafskym.pdf 27. Dickinson, A. (2000). Signs of the Times. Time Magazine, 156(16), 93. Retrieved from http://www.time.com/magazine/article/0,9171,998221,00.html 28. Goodwyn, S. W., Acredolo, L. P., & Brown, C. A. (2000). Impact of Symbolic Gesturing on Early Language Development. Journal Of Nonverbal Behavior, 24(2), 81-103. 29. Ipatenco, S. (2010). Sign Language & it’s Effects on Language Development in Infants & Toddlers. Live strong. Retrieved from http://www.livestrong.com/article/179812-sign-language-its-effect-on-language-development-in-infants-toddlers/ 30. Nelson, L. H., White, K. R. and Grewe, J. (2012). Evidence for Website Claims about the Benefits of Teaching Sign Language to Infants and Toddlers with Normal Hearing. Infant and Child Development, 21, 474–502. doi: 10.1002/icd.1748 31. Pizer, G., Walters, K., & Meier, R. P. (2007). Bringing up Baby with Baby Signs: Language Ideologies and Socialization in Hearing Families. Sign Language Studies. 7(4), 387-430. doi: 10.1353/sls.2007.0026 32. Acquisition of Sign Language Challenges Linguistics Theory. Gallaudet University. (2007). Retrieved from: http://vl2.gallaudet.edu/assets/section7/document15.pdf 33. Berck, Judith. (2004). Before Baby Talk, Signs and Signals. The New York Times. Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/06/health/before-baby-talk-signs-and-signals.html

35. Petitto, Lauren Ann. Holowka, Siobhan. Sergio, Lauren. Ostry, David. (2001). Language Rhythms in baby hand movements. Nature. 413. Retrieved from: http://www.yorku.ca/lsergio/petitto_nature_2001.pdf 36. Rabagliati H, Senghas A, Johnson S, Marcus GF (2012) Infant Rule Learning: Advantage Language, or Advantage Speech? PLOS. Retrieved from: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0040517 37. Seal, Brenda. (2010). About Baby Signing. ASHA. Retrieved from: http://www.asha.org/publications/leader/2010/101102/about-baby-signing.htm