The Nanny's Corner

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Dear Chris,

I was wondering what your opinion of Baby Sign Language is.   We have some friends who are trying it with their youngest.   They said they liked it because they were able to communicate with him well before he would've been able to talk.   I've also seen a couple of books on it .   Any thoughts?

Dear Speechless,

Since most of our communication with babies is non-verbal, the trend of Baby Sign Language doesn't seem harmful to me.   I've had a few families who tried it with varying success and since I know some rudimentary sign language, I could support them in their efforts.   Those opportunities gave me the chance to form some of my own "hand's on" opinions about the practice.

Of course families with members who rely on Sign Language (American or otherwise) teach their babies to sign from birth.   For these children, learning to sign is a necessity.   This practice is supported by the child's family and springs from the natural character of that family.   It's the "mother tongue" for that child or the equivalent of being brought up in a household where one or more members speak a language other than English.

The rest of us still use an infinite number of gestures to communicate with each other.   We teach them to our children every minute of the day with every part of our body.   Children are keen observers and a small child's primary method of learning is by imitating our every gesture, internal and external.   So the child is learning to gesture for what they want from the minute they lift their little arms to be picked up.   The difference is that these gestures aren't a formal language system.

For those of us who don't use sign language to communicate with each other the question is, why would we teach our infants to speak a separate language?   From studying the countless products you can purchase to pursue this endeavor, the answer seems to be so they can communicate with their parents supposedly at an earlier age and therefore alleviate some of the suffering that comes with the inability to express their needs and desires.   This theoretically makes life easier for the parents since there is less tantrum throwing and you have a happier child.   Some of the proponents of BSL also hint that children who learn sign language may also speak sooner and be smarter than their non-BSL peers.

I would challenge all those claims.   I've seen no evidence to support them nor have I seen them proven in my experience.   If you're attracted by them I think it's wise to ponder why you would want to speed up your child's communication skills or why it's important for you that your child be "smarter."   Smarter than what?   Life isn't a competition or a race and to try to enhance your child's skills or speed up their development is a trap many parents fall into that quickly backfires.   A child is ALWAYS learning, every minute of the day.   The only way you could make them "smarter" is to add more minutes to the day (and no, depriving them of their much needed sleep is not the path to a genius child!)   Any time you spend coaching them on one thing is time they are not learning something else, so ask yourself if what you're teaching them is really worthwhile in the big picture.   Parents are easy prey for marketers as they are generally an insecure bunch who will spend any amount of money to assure themselves that they've done right by their children.   Buyer beware!

Even more dangerous than trying to boost your child's progress is to deprive them of their struggle to communicate in the same language as all the adults around them by giving them a separate language that only a few of their caregivers understand and will soon become obsolete for them.   As parents it's important for you and your child to have your unhappy moments instead of contriving all manner of schemes to avoid them.   Parenting is a life of growth.   There will be tantrums.   There will be misunderstandings.   There will be sweat and tears, breakthroughs, victories and disappointments.   They all begin in these most important first few years.   Instead of trying to give your child an adult tool that they will soon discard just so you can avoid some of that struggle, why not use the same time teaching your child their true mother tongue?   And then pay close attention to how your unique child is trying to communicate back to you.   Why not let them teach you some signs?

The children that I've worked with who learned BSL mastered their Baby Signs about the same time they were mastering many other forms of communication.   They also had as many problems with their Baby Signs as they did with those other methods.   The sign for milk often just meant that they wanted something, not always a drink, not always milk.   The sign for Mommy often just meant woman caregiver, much to Mommy's dismay.   Sometimes we thought they were signing for milk when they were using the gesture to try to grasp for something across the room, as most babies do.   The sign for more often gets lost in their sleeves or clothing or is gestured under the table so it goes unnoticed.   I could go on but I think you get the picture.

As I said at the beginning, I don't think that signing to your child as you're speaking or using signs in a playful manner as finger games is harmful at all.   I'm sure children benefit from any cheerful, playful attention from their parents.   We teach signs here to the children all the time, in much the same way other day care settings teach finger games.   As the children try them out it challenges their dexterity and gives them a fun new slant on their lives.   A three year old loves to learn that the sign for dog is like calling a dog, or that the sign for cat is like stroking a cat's whiskers.   Just as they love to learn how to count in Spanish or French or Japanese, they love to learn how to say a few simple things in ASL.   There is much evidence supporting the practice of introducing new languages to preschoolers in a stress free, playful way.   There have also been times when a child in my care has relied on ASL to communicate and the other children became so much richer for soaking up that experience and taking part in it when they felt comfortable doing so.   But of the babies who were taught BSL, not one has retained what they knew because it was not a part of their regular life and once they could use words to express themselves it was dropped like a hot potato.

As in all things, it's not what you do with your child so much as it is the spirit that you do it with.   If you take up an endeavor that is ultimately useless in order to accelerate your child and for the purpose of avoiding struggles of growth I would caution you against it.   If you take up the same endeavor with a playful spirit of exploring a fun activity with your child expecting no inflated outcomes of any sort then I would give you my wholehearted endorsement!