Literacy news
Jan Broomfield comments on baby signing
30 Jun 2010
Dr Jan Broomfield, Councillor for Research and Development at the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, wrote a piece in the July 2010 issue of Bulletin, the college's official magazine, in response to comments on an article on baby signing.
She pointed out that baby signing “is becoming an increasingly popular provision for infants and their parents. There is often a claim that such provision leads to increased verbal communication, but there is little supporting evidence”.
Jan Broomfield reported that a recently published study from the University of Hertfordshire “found that, for infants with typically developing language, there was no support for claims that gesture accelerated language development; in fact, they raise questions about the validity of previous claims in the literature for this population.”
She went on to say, “there can be no denying that the use of gesture, whether formal or informal (symbolic) for children with identified causes for early language development – hearing impairment, Down syndrome etc – is key to supporting linguistic development and may become the primary communication mode.”
Jan Broomfield concluded, “as yet, there is no evidence to support use of gesture to enhance the verbal skills of ‘typically-developing’ infants, and the relevance for infants with unattributable communication delay remains questionable at the current time.”
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