Before Baby Talk, Signs and Signals

From: New York Times - Jan 5, 2004

By JUDITH BERCK

PORTLAND, Ore., Jan. 5 — When Jacqueline Turner's daughter Riley was only 8 months old, she could let her mother know she was thirsty for milk by pumping her fingers against her palm. Or that she wanted more cereal by touching her fingertips together. Or ask for a ball, or her stuffed dog, or a book — all without saying a word. She used hand gestures taught to her by her mother.

Why teach signs to a baby who is not deaf? Mrs. Turner, a Spanish-language interpreter from Beaverton, said she bought a book and video about teaching signs to babies to help eliminate the frustration Riley had in not being able to communicate, as well as Mrs. Turner's own frustration in not understanding her.

"It makes her feel that she's more in control of a situation and has choices," Mrs. Turner said.

For hearing and deaf children, the ability to gesture tends to develop ahead of words. Babies can wave bye-bye to Grandma months before they can talk, for instance.

In interviews last fall, Dr. Elizabeth Bates, one of the leading researchers in the field and the director of the Center for Research in Language at the University of California at San Diego, talked about the development of this type of communication. (Dr. Bates died in mid-December.)

"It has to do with how easily one can imitate and reproduce something with a great big fat hand as opposed to the mini, delicate hundreds of muscles that control the tongue," Dr. Bates said in the interview. "You can also see somebody using a hand, which you can't do with a tongue."

Recent work in neuroscience has shown that the areas in the brain that control the mouth and speech and the areas that control the hands and gestures overlap a great deal and develop together, Dr. Bates added.

Teaching simple gestures, or signs, to babies before they can talk is a way to jump-start the language and communication process, and stimulate intellectual development. It can also confer a host of related benefits, including increased vocabulary, a deeper parent-child bond, enhanced self-esteem and decreased tantrums during the "Terrible 2's," proponents say.

Research by two child development experts in California has perhaps drawn the most interest.

Dr. Linda Acredolo of the University of California at Davis, and Dr. Susan W. Goodwyn of the California State University at Stanislaus used their own set of signs for a study, in July 2000, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. They presented their findings at the International Conference on Infant Studies in Brighton, England.

They found that second graders who had been encouraged to use their signing system during the second year of life had an advantage of 12 I.Q. points over children who did not use any such system.

Also intriguing has been the work of Joseph Garcia, the author of the best-selling book and video series "Sign With Your Baby: How to Communicate With Infants Before They Can Speak."

Mr. Garcia, an American Sign Language and early child development researcher, noticed that the hearing babies of deaf parents could communicate their needs and desires at a much earlier age than children of hearing parents.

His research found that through signs, parent-infant communication could begin at 8 months, rather than waiting for comprehensible speech to develop at 16 to 18 months.

In an era of competitive preschool admissions tests, not surprisingly, this research has set off a boom in demand for classes, books and videos. "Baby Signs: How to Talk With Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk," a book based on Dr. Acredolo and Dr. Goodwyn's signing system, has been a best seller and has spawned a spinoff company that trains teachers.

But giving a baby an edge is not the reason to sign, Dr. Acredolo cautioned. "It's not a 'better baby' gimmick," she said. "We really feel the gift is to the parent-infant relationship. The main reason to do it is to enable the baby to communicate what they need and see, to share their world with you."

Whether it is an organized effort to improve a baby's communication skills or a marketing technique to captivate anxious parents and capitalize on something instinctively known by parents for generations remains a matter of debate. Even the terminology used to describe the hand movements for babies has been questioned.

Dr. Bates said last year that calling this "signing" was misleading because that referred to a conventional sign language; instead she contended these movements should be referred to as gestures.

Dr. Acredolo defended her system of simple hand movements.

"They should really be called signs in my opinion because they are symbols — they stand for a concept," she said. "Gestures are a much larger category that includes almost any body movement that we use during speech."

Mr. Garcia's system is based on a subset of American Sign Language, using simple signs to reinforce single words.

Not everybody in the field believes a special system is required. "Gesturing when you are talking to babies will certainly enhance communication, and it doesn't require buying anybody's product," Dr. Bates said.

She said that early gesturing could enhance a child's I.Q. by helping to improve language skills.

"It is well established that the more you talk to babies — and you gesture naturally as you do that — the higher their vocabularies," Dr. Bates said. "Something that can increase your child's vocabulary will increase I.Q."

Parents who sign with their babies may be learning as much about communicating as their children.

"Research shows huge individual differences in how much adults communicate with children," Dr. Bates said. "The studies out there show significant effects probably because a subset of the parents in the studies were not communicating with their kids as much as they start to when they enter these programs."

Many parents wonder whether signing will get in the way of their babies' learning how to talk. According to Mrs. Turner, who continued to sign with Riley for several months after she began speaking, what happened was just the opposite. "Once she started saying her first words, the more I used signs, the more she answered back with words," she said. Riley, now 20 months old, is very verbal and says cogent three-word sentences.

Signing can also ease a toddler's transition to speaking by reducing the frustration of trying to pronounce words like "toothbrush," or to express concepts like needing a diaper changed.

For instance, even before Riley could speak, she was able to show her mother that something hurt by making the sign for pain and pointing to a part of her body. And according to Mrs. Turner, Riley understood that the word "please" would get her a favorite toy or a drink of milk more quickly but it was difficult for her to say because of the l's. Instead she did the sign for "please."

For Mrs. Turner, signing with a child is as much about empowerment as about communication. It provided Riley, and would provide other children, with another tool to get their needs met.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company