American Sign Language - ASL and Baby Sign

ASL and Baby Sign

In recent years, researchers have shown that exposure to sign language has a positive impact on the socialization of hearing children. When infants are taught to sign, parents are able to converse with them at a developmental stage when they are not yet capable of producing vocal speech, which requires fine control of both breathing and the vocal tract. The ability of a child to actively communicate earlier than would otherwise be possible appears to accelerate language development and to decrease the frustrations of communication. In a study, more than 140 families were randomly assigned to two groups: signing and non-signing. Babies using sign language showed a three-month developmental advancement at 24-months, speaking like 27-month olds. At 36-months, they were developing like a 47-month old, showing a whole year's advancement. By age 8, those who were signing as babies scored an average of twelve points higher on the WISC-III IQ test.

Many parents use a collection of simplified or ad hoc signs called "baby sign." However, parents can learn to recognize their baby's approximations of adult ASL signs, just as they will later learn to recognize their approximations of oral language, so teaching an infant ASL is also possible. Typically, young children will make an ASL sign in the correct location and use the correct hand motion, but may be able only to approximate the hand shape, for example, using one finger instead of three in signing water. Deaf children from deaf families will often "babble" in sign, just as their hearing counterparts babble in speech, making nonsensical hand gestures.

ASL has come a long way from its condemned days of banned use to being viewed as a grammatical language, which is the main form of communication in American Deaf culture. Many parents today purchase “Baby Signs” DVDs and books which incorporate ASL signs for infant and toddler communication. “Baby Signs” was developed by Dr. Linda Acredolo and Dr. Susan Goodwyn in the early 1980s, and has become a persistent trend in child development.

However, there is an interesting contrast between the belief that exposure of signs to a hearing infant will aid them in language development, whereas a deaf infant at times must show the inability to learn an oral language before they are taught sign language. This thought had originated due to the idea that sign language hinders the development of an oral language in deaf children (Mayberry, 2008).