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Baby signing: the view from the sceptics

1 Nov 2004

Arguing against signing with babies is a bit like arguing against motherhood and apple pie, since signing and gesture are (like talking) natural ways of communicating used all over the world. We aren't saying it's a bad thing, but we are saying that professionals should ask themselves some basic questions before leaping on this extraordinarily fashionable bandwagon.

We suggest asking:

what roles do sign and gesture play in early development?
is it necessary to sign to babies?
who benefits?

We know that babies develop signed or spoken language in situations where carers are offering sensitive contingent responses and appropriate stimulation for requests, naming, communication of feelings and social behaviours. The argument for the introduction of sign to babies rests on research suggesting that babies learning sign as a first language produce their first signs slightly earlier than babies produce their first spoken words.

Several explanations have been put forward for this reported sign advantage. One suggestion is the differing maturation rates of the motor system for hand movements when compared with that of the speech apparatus. However, these early signs actually seem formationally identical to the gestures produced by both deaf and hearing babies - hand opening and closing for more or milk for example. So the 'signs' are actually gestures that all babies produce (see discussion by Volterra et al, in press).

Acredolo and Goodwyn (2004) state: "Research has shown that signs are easiest for babies and for parents when they involve simple gestures and when they resemble the things they stand for, e.g. fingers to lips for 'eat'; arms out straight like wings for 'airplane.'" If you reinforce particular gestures and particular sounds, babies will develop their communication skills in several different modalities. There does appear to be a short period during which infants can produce more differentiated and controlled hand gestures than speech sounds, but it is a transitory phase. By the time children have started to produce their first words and then combine them, the timelines for signs and words appear to be essentially similar.

However, if we paid as much attention to babies' vocalisations as we do to their hands, we would find that gestures are likely to be accompanied by protowords - consistent vocalisations that are word-like. Amazing. If we actually attend to what our babies are vocalising, imitate their sounds back to them and present them with contexts where their sound making has meaning, perhaps they will talk as well as sign.

For example, my granddaughter at eight and a half months was saying 'tat' for cat and other things that interested her, and at 10 months has a range of six or seven vocalisations associated with particular events and feelings. We think we might start marketing this novel approach. We could call it Baby Talk. We would be very happy to provide workshops, videos and CD-ROMs (at a price).

Is it necessary?
Garcia (1999) and Acredolo and Goodwyn (2002) claim that children can learn signs before they can learn words, and that teaching them signs will lead to measurable differences in behaviour and cognition. "Research in the USA reports that, by being taught signs, hearing babies can understand and express language long before they are physically able to speak. Parents who have used Garcia's methods for signing with hearing babies as young as seven or eight months claim that it can help communication, verbal language development and dramatically reduce frustration - even a few simple signs like 'more', 'eat, and 'milk' can make a big difference in empowering and meeting the needs of babes" (from the Northlight Communications catalogue).

The argument is that babies are experiencing huge frustration because they cannot communicate. To our knowledge, there is no research which suggests that this is the case for typical babies, who are generally pretty good at making their needs known. Using some symbolic gestures is part of normal parenting, but we are not at all clear that anyone needs to go on a course, buy videos or do anything other than use the range of skills they naturally possess. Speech and language therapists, in particular, should be seeking to empower parents to use gestures (a huge range applicable, such as come, eat, bye-bye, drink, go, look at that, clap, cuddle, no, phone) and the equivalent sounds or 'vocal gestures' (mm, lip smack, animal noises, bang, ooh, wow) that children will easily pick up at this age to show their feelings and interests.

We know of at least one case (from a colleague at City university) where a mother's decision to focus entirely on teaching baby sign and to ignore vocalisations has actually retarded her son's spoken language development. So we suggest that therapists should encourage parents to develop all means of communication, and not just one at the expense of another.

In fact, the most helpful thing parents can probably do for their children between the ages of eight and 12 months is to encourage them to point, since there is very sound research suggesting that the use of pointing is associated with joint attention and the development of object naming and language development.

Statements such as, "Do you want to strengthen the bond with your baby by being able to communicate with them before they can speak? By attending a Signing Infants Workshop, you too can start on the amazing journey of communicating with your baby," (from a British website) are particularly disingenuous, suggesting that parents cannot communicate with their babies until they sign.

Manual gesture is, of course, extremely useful for babies whose development is compromised, including children with special needs, children with hearing loss and children who are not developing spoken language. In this context, baby sign does have the useful function of making signing a more acceptable avenue of development, and this is certainly welcomed. But this brings us to our next question.

Who benefits?
It is quite staggering to see the rash of websites, books, videos, workshops and training courses. All are promoting 'baby sign' and using signs form the language of deaf people. Well, it's certainly making a lot of money for someone. But are deaf people benefiting? Do we see any evidence of any of the profits being donated to organisations that support deaf children and their families? More pertinently, even, who do you think are the real experts in using baby sign? Is it the hearing promoters who have copyrighted the name, or could it just be deaf parents who use their own language with their babies? How nice it would be to see the proponents of baby sign inviting deaf people to be the trainers, the authors and the models in the videos.

So, finally, our suggestions to therapists who would like to advocate the use of signs with parents are:

parents don't have to spend loads of money attending workshops and buying videos - they can use the gestures they already know;
make sure you encourage parents to focus just as much on what babies are saying; and
if you do want to give them a wider range of gestures, why not get deaf parents to come and teach them? And pay them the money you would paid the baby signers.

Nicola Grove, Ros Herman, Gary Morgan and Bencie Woll - Speech and Language Therapists, Department of Language and Communication Sciences, City University, London.

(RCSLT Bulletin, November 2004)

Tags: Talk To Your Baby