Teaching hearing babies to sign.

While pregnant with the twins, I did quite a bit of reading. Of course, most of it had to do with childbirth and parenting. I came across several articles about the benefits of teaching hearing babies to sign. After some research, I decided this was something I would try. After all, what could it hurt?

Jamie Burke, at About.com has an interesting article Sign Language – Baby Signing. It’s a very interesting article with great resources.

I started signing to my kids at around 4 months of age. This is when they started eating cereal. Everytime I would feed them, I would sign the word eat. At around 6 months of age, they started getting excited when I would sign the word “eat”. By 7 months, they were actually signing eat themselves. By the time they were a year old, they were signing and speaking in three – five word sentences.

It’s amazing how most children who are bilingual usually start speaking than children who are not bilingual. This is true for every language except sign language. When a baby learns to speak, he/she uses the left hemisphere of the brain. With sign language, both the right and left hemispheres are used. This results in the brain building more synapses.

Of course, I am no expert, but for my children, I believe sign language has been a great benefit. Before the age of two, my daughter was already reading car tags and by 2 1/2 my son had somehow memorized a number of birthdates. To this day, they continue to amaze me with the things they learn and know.

Tags: Baby ASL