| A decade ago, if you'd seen a baby using sign | | | | Baby Signs Inc, which today provides workshops for |
| language with her parents, you probably would've | | | | parents and signing play sessions for babies. Garcia - |
| assumed the baby was deaf. Not so these days. The | | | | having worked as an American Sign Language (ASL) |
| number of parents enjoying the benefits of signing with | | | | interpreter throughout the 1970s - began researching |
| their hearing baby or toddler has mushroomed in the | | | | the role of sign language in early childhood language |
| past 10 years. But why use sign language to | | | | acquisition in 1986. In 1999, he published his Sign With |
| communicate with a child who can hear - and is | | | | Your Baby Complete Learning Kit, a set of printed and |
| learning to speak anyway? | | | | video materials for parents wishing to teach and learn |
| Speech is not an easy thing to master, and a baby's | | | | ASL from home. |
| passive vocabulary (the words he can understand) is | | | | Both Acredolo and Goodwyn, and Garcia were struck |
| often far more developed than his active vocabulary | | | | by the fact that babies can communicate much earlier |
| (the words he can use). Long before he utters his first | | | | through signing than they can through speech. |
| word, a baby has specific needs and wishes to | | | | Acredolo and Goodwyn discovered this when |
| communicate. Studies have shown that it is easier for | | | | Acredolo noticed her 12-month-old daughter using |
| babies to reproduce gestures than it is for them to | | | | symbolic gestures to communicate. Garcia, through his |
| reproduce words. In fact, babies naturally employ | | | | work as an ASL interpreter, noticed that hearing |
| symbolic gestures to get their meaning across. By | | | | children of deaf parents would communicate through |
| introducing sign language, gestures become an | | | | sign language before they learned to speak - and as a |
| effective form of communication. The signing baby is | | | | result, could communicate earlier than hearing children |
| empowered. | | | | of parents who did not use sign language. |
| The potential benefits of this are huge. Not only do | | | | SIGNING GOES MAINSTREAM |
| babies and parents experience the joy of | | | | In 2002, with the debut of Signing Time on American |
| communicating early (babies as young as 3 months | | | | Public Television, hearing children across the US were |
| have been known to sign "milk"), but toddlers | | | | introduced to a fun way of learning ASL. Designed for |
| experience reduced frustration when they can | | | | kids aged one and up, the show has since wrapped its |
| express themselves. Toddlers who know several | | | | second season and expanded to include Baby Signing |
| single words may wish to communicate something | | | | Time (for babies aged 3 to 36 months). Host and |
| beyond their verbal capacity - and signing allows this. | | | | cocreator Rachel de Azevedo Coleman originally |
| When parents can respond to their toddler's specific | | | | devised the program as way to enable more children |
| request (even if it is to refuse it), the child is less likely | | | | to communicate with people like her daughter Leah, |
| to throw a tantrum. Proponents of baby signing go so | | | | who is deaf (Leah and her cousin Alex, who can hear, |
| far as to credit the practice with eliminating the Terrible | | | | also star in the show). With her lively presenting style, |
| Twos. So who do we have to thank for this | | | | smiling face and beautiful singing voice, singer-actress |
| revelation? | | | | Coleman is a big part of Signing Time and Baby |
| IN THE BEGINNING... | | | | Signing Time's appeal. So, too, are the catchy, playful |
| The first people in the US to suggest using sign | | | | (but never infantile) original songs composed by |
| language with hearing infants and toddlers were Linda | | | | Coleman and her father, Lex de Azevedo - a |
| Acredolo and Susan Goodwyn (cocreators of Baby | | | | renowned composer of film scores. |
| Signs), and Joseph Garcia (creator of Sign With Your | | | | Two years after Signing Time's debut, the hit movie |
| Baby). Beginning in 1982, psychologists Acredolo and | | | | Meet The Fockers put baby signing even more firmly |
| Goodwyn carried out two decades of research into | | | | on the map. The Ben Stiller comedy features a signing |
| the practice of signing with hearing babies. In 1996 they | | | | baby as well as Garcia's Sign With Your Baby book. |
| coauthored Baby Signs: How To Talk With Your Baby | | | | The real-life baby had actually learned to sign from |
| Before Your Baby Can Talk. In 2003, they founded | | | | watching Signing Time. |