Babies taught sign language often ahead of their peers later on

"I want to let you guys know that signs are not just for hearing-impaired kids," speech pathologist Meredith Layton told toddlers and their parents as she demonstrated a few signs during a recent story time at a Memphis book store.

"There's a movement in parenting to use signs with babies when they're young and before they speak," said Layton, author of a new children's book about sign language. "I did it with my son, and he flourished."

Layton's son, Bo, could make signs for "more" and "eat" when he was about 8 months old, before he had the motor skills to speak the words. At 10 months, he could tug on his mother's shirt and make the sign for cookie. Now 19 months old, Bo can speak about 100 words and make about 40 signs.

Layton began teaching Bo sign language when she realized it could help him and other typical children, just as it has helped her students with Down syndrome and other special needs. "Signing cut down on whining and frustration when he could sign what he wanted to eat," Layton said about Bo.

Sign language has been a regular part of the therapy for about five years at Special Kids, a non-profit agency in Memphis that provides early intervention for children with special needs, said assistant director Ruth Richards.

Layton believes sign language is so promising for all types of kids that she wrote a children's book designed to teach 15 basic signs. Layton and her husband, Scott, are publishing "Baby's First Words" through their own company, Peek A Boo Publishing, and plan to start selling it in late August for $16.95.

But Layton faces the task of answering the most frequently asked question about babies learning sign language: Doesn't it delay speech?

"It's just the opposite. Babies who use signs have higher IQs and speak words earlier," said Layton, citing years of research in California funded by a $500,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health.

Sign language for babies serves as a temporary bridge to verbal communication, said Dr. Linda Acredolo, a psychology professor at the University of California-Davis, who conducted the research with Dr. Susan Goodwyn, a psychology professor at California State University.

"They need to communicate, but they can't master the vocal system. This gives them another way around that," Acredolo said.

"Very soon babies are driven to learn the words. As soon as they can, they substitute the word. In the meantime, you don't have a frustrated kid."

In a study of 120 children that began in 1989, 40 children learned signs while two control groups of children did not. By the time the sign-training babies were 3 years old, their verbal ability was four to five months ahead of the control-group kids. By the time the signing children finished second grade, they had an average IQ of 114 compared with 102 for the other children, Acredolo said.

One reason for higher IQs could be the signing babies communicated about complex things earlier, helping them build the circuitry of their brains, Acredolo said. And when the babies used signs, it helped motivate parents "to pour out language at them." In the accepted practice of teaching signs to typical kids, parents and teachers speak words along with the signs. That's one reason speech is not delayed.

Using signs also helped the children learn about the world and become self-confident about dealing with adults because they could be understood, Acredolo said.

Acredolo and Goodwyn are the authors of "Baby Signs: How to Talk With Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk" (Contemporary Books Inc., 176 pages, $12.95). This book describes how parents and caregivers can help babies develop their own "baby signs" to communicate. The signs can come from American Sign Language or from the imagination of babies and their families.

"We don't care if people want to use formal sign language, but it's not necessary," Acredolo said. Kids stop using signs as they speak more words, so the "baby signs" are meant to be temporary.

Since it was published in 1996, 100,000 copies of "Baby Signs" have been sold, Acredolo said.

However, teaching signs to babies is still new to most parents. "I don't think it's widespread in the typical population," Layton said.

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