Honestly, we hope the fad of signing with babies continues to grow into a cultural norm. The idea is that a toddler who can indicate his desire for mama, milk, or more with hand signals will find that more effective than screaming and crying. Moms find that a great hope for peace, and among the families who have tried it, they’ve found it to be so.
Mechanically, a child’s dense motor skills, like reach and grip, develop sooner than fine motor skills, like clear speech. If they can learn to move their hands in a certain way to declare “more” or “finished,” then meal time can get a lot less messy.
While this is true, the child is also learning the relationship between code and meaning. That’s normal, part of our brain’s design, but when the code is something they can produce easier (dense motor skills) and get feedback sooner (one more cookie), their cognitive development gets a jump-start.
There’s another up-side for moms here — most of us know “the look” that says “stop what you’re doing, immediately.” Imagine the ability to toss a few hand signals across a room that say “sit down” or “go ahead” or “we’ll leave soon” without interrupting your ongoing chat with friends or changing out of your happy face.
These are some of the perks of deciding to use signs with your infant. Then there are the unforeseen circumstances that make it a surprise blessing. The child with speech issues that won’t get detected for a while. The child with a cognitive glitch that will hide for another 2-5 years. The child on the autism spectrum. For these children, this practice sets them up with tools no one could have predicted they’d need, but they, and mom, are ready to take on the hard stuff because they’re already communicating.
There’s another perspective to consider… signs are signs, just as words are words. We teach children the names of things they encounter, and that enables us to discuss the thing whether we’re looking at it or not. It also gives the children a way to discuss the same thing, by the same name, with other people beyond the household. The sign for milk is the same all over America (and several other places) for people of all ages, so it’s not a “baby sign,” it’s the sign. You can see why adult signers would be bothered by the phrase “baby sign.” See the blog “From the Executive’s Heart” on the Silent Blessings (dot org) website for more on this.
Yes, we highly encourage the fad of using sign language with babies.