Baby sign language is the use of sign language in order to communicate with infants and toddlers. While infants and toddlers have a desire to communicate their needs and wishes, they lack the ability to do so clearly because the production of speech lags behind cognitive ability in the first years of life. Proponents of baby sign language say that this gap between desire to communicate and ability often leads to frustration and tantrums. However, since hand–eye coordination develops sooner than acquisition of verbal skills, infants can learn simple signs for common words such as "eat", "sleep", "more", "hug", "play", "cookie", and "teddy bear" before they are able to produce understandable speech.
Read more about Baby Sign Language: Behavioral Research, Developmental Research, Research Controversy, Practice, In Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words baby, sign and/or language:
“Your old skin puckering, your lungs’ breath
Grown baby short as you looked up last
At my face swinging over the human bed,
And somewhere you cried, let me go let me go.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Every sign by itself seems dead. What gives it life?—In use it is alive. Is life breathed into it there?—Or is the use its life?”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“No language is rude that can boast polite writers.”
—Aubrey Beardsley (1872–1898)