How to teach baby sign language
October 27, 2008
Just imagine how frustrated you will be if you desperately want something but simply cannot put across your need. Well, that is exactly how your baby feels many a times. Baby sign language will help you in tackling this situation successfully. It is a method of using specific handshapes and movements in order to ensure easy communication between you and your baby. Sign language will surely reduce the level of frustration experienced by your baby.
Communication, of course, is difficult at the initial stages of infanthood as only certain sounds are let out by the baby. In most cases, the baby cries when he fails to communicate effectively his particular need. When baby is frustrated, you feel helpless and sad.
Baby sign language makes use of baby hand and finger signs as tools. However, babies’ needs are limited and so is their world of words. Mostly, the words they want to communicate are “hungry”, “milk”, “wet”, “hurt” and “sleepy”. Before they learn to voice their needs, their facial muscles effectively put across their requirements. Placement of tongue, formation of lips, shaping of nasal passage, controlling of vocal chords, breathing regulation etc will explain for them their real wants. However, it is extremely difficult to decipher their need from such facial muscle movements. It is here that baby sign language comes to your rescue.
Teaching your baby sign language is not that tough. Teaching the first sign can take two to three weeks. Even at the slightest positive response, the baby should be encouraged. Your baby can be trained somewhere between six to nine months. However it is never too late before fifteen months. When you start training at six months, you might feel that you started a bit early but do not give up. You can begin teaching by signing the word repeatedly while pointing to the object. You can also try to get him nod his head for “yes” and shake head for “no”.
Do continue to sign again and again and soon your baby will surprise you by signing a word correctly to communicate a specific need. Once the baby masters a particular sign it will be much easier to teach other signs. Empower your child with expression skills.
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