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Baby signing

Baby signing is the use of basic signs to help bridge the gap of communication for pre-verbal children. By using these basic gestures, you can help your child let you know what they want and what they are thinking, empowering your baby to communicate with those around them, before they are able to speak.

What are the benefits of baby signing?

• Reduce frustration for both you and your baby by allowing your baby to tell you what they want, what's wrong or what hurts. This may help your baby experience less frustration as they can communicate their basic needs meaning you wont have to try and interpret their cries or tantrums.
• Provide insight into your baby's mind and who they really are by allowing you to see what they are thinking as well as what they are interested in.
• Stimulate intellectual development and improve memory because children often pay greater attention to what is being taught when signing is involved.
• Research has shown that children who using sign language may acquire spoken language faster than non-signing children.
• Enhance your baby's confidence, esteem and self-expression by allowing them to communicate their wants and needs.
• Teaching sign language can stimulate your baby's brain development because learning sign language incorporates the use of both the right and left hemisphere of the brain (compared to learning a spoken language, which only uses the brain's left hemisphere) which means that the brain builds more synapses. By introducing signing to your baby, you are giving your child the gift to communicate.
  

Article by the Careway team