• Baby Signs Institute
• Lacoste
• Baby Signs
• Nationwide classes
• Sign, Say & Play
• Signing Time DVD series

Signs of the Times

In the months after Denise and Jesse Odom of Westchester County, NY, gave birth to their baby daughter, the little girl did what so many other infants do night and day: She wailed.

And how did Mom and Dad feel? Frustrated. This is one of the most common exchanges of emotions between parents and their newborns.

But instead of counting the days until this difficult part of babyhood ended, the Odoms did what a new breed of parents is starting to do with their tiny tykes: They taught 6-month-old Chloe to talk using her hands.

When a newborn babe starts crying, it can feel as if she'll never stop. And if her diapers are dry, she's had her nap, and her bottle is empty, it's hard to know what the problem is. Thanks to the efforts of Linda Acredolo and Susan Goodwyn, founders of the Baby Signs Institute in Vacaville, CA, parents no longer have to play a guessing game. Instead, they can teach their infants and toddlers to communicate using baby signs, sign language based on American Sign Language, only simpler and more baby-friendly.

"Babies have the ability to think about things and the desire to communicate them well before they can manage the words. The result for them is frustration unless you give them some alternative," says Acredolo, who started signing with her son as a toddler in 1987.

She recalls an instance in the mall when her son stuck out his hands, wrists together, and started clapping, making the sign for crocodile, his favorite animal. "Where do you see a crocodile in the mall?" she asked. He ran over to a men's clothing store and pointed to a Lacoste shirt, whose insignia is a crocodile.

"I was just tickled pink that I understood him, and he was thrilled. It's that kind of window into their baby's mind that parents are dumbfounded to finally discover." After 10 years, and some hefty research, Acredolo, a former professor of child development at the University of California-Davis, published Baby Signs.

Classic useful signs are putting your closed hands by the face like a pillow for "sleep," or clasping hands together and then opening them to mimic "book." The idea is that if the parent makes the sign, eventually the baby will, too.

Today, there are over 800 nationwide classes and workshops affiliated with the Baby Signs Institute, each dedicated to teaching parents and babies how to sign. The most popular is the Sign, Say & Play program, a 6-week course during which parents and babies can learn signs with games, songs, and other activities.

"We learned that parents like to be with other parents. These classes are fun for the baby and for the parent, and each one has a theme, like mealtime signs or bedtime signs," Acredolo says.

But some parents prefer to take these classes in their living rooms rather than going to a facility. When they decided they wanted to teach little Chloe to sign, the Odoms opted to do it from home, using the Signing Time DVD series.

"To be able at a young age like that to communicate you want food and that you want more of something, it was mind-blowing," recalls Mom. Today Chloe, 2, knows over 200 signs, and, according to her proud parents, won't stop using them.

"She's spoken for so long, I can barely remember a time when she wasn't talking."

 

Posted on August 21, 2006