‘Baby signing’ gaining popularity

<b>Teaching sign language to pre-verbal infants has no down side, experts say</b>

by Brian Rosenthal

Lexi Closson is 22 months old, and hasn’t really developed the ability to speak yet. Still, when she needs something, she’s able to communicate with her mother clearly.

Is the mother, 33-year-old Cari Closson, a mind reader? Not exactly. She’s a signer.

Cari, a mother of five, has been teaching sign language to Lexi and her second-youngest daughter, Tori.

“Before they could speak, they could tell me when they wanted more with something or they were done with something,” said Cari, a Galveston resident, adding that she didn’t know any signs before she started working with her daughters on the language.

Cari is not alone. Parents across the country are starting to use “baby signing,” the unofficial name for a technique to teach sign language to infants who have not yet learned to speak.

While babies often naturally make gestures, it’s important for parents to encourage the signs, explained Linda Acredolo, founder of the baby signing movement. It doesn’t have to be the American Sign Language; any stable sign system will work, she said.

The technique allows the infants to communicate wants and needs to their parents, and also has long-term benefits, said Acredolo, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of California-Davis.

“It makes the whole parent-baby interaction so much smoother, so much more satisfying, and so much more fun,” she said. “It’s a window into the kids’ heads that is priceless.”

Acredolo started researching the technique in 1982, after she growing “very, very interested” in the natural signs made by her own daughter.

The experiments showed that babies who learned to sign learned to talk sooner and got ahead in language skills, Acredolo said. At age 8, the kids were still performing better on cognitive tests.

“Baby signing stimulates language development, so a year or two later, those kids tend to be ahead in their verbal language development,” said James Elicker, an associate professor of developmental studies at Purdue University. “The idea is that you get kids working with language symbols so their minds become more oriented to language sooner.”

But Cari said she didn’t take up the idea to get her kids ahead.

“Experts will say it helps them in the future of learning,” she said. “We didn’t do it to make them smarter or to advance them. For us, it was just something we could do together that was fun.”

When she was six months pregnant with Tori, Cari and her husband decided to try the technique because they “thought it would be interesting,” she said. The mother bought a baby signing book and started tuning into a PBS show geared toward teaching infants how to sign.

Today, all of the shows have been taped. Tori is 4 and able to speak. But she still works on sign language and enjoys teaching younger sister Lexi.

Why does she still work on the language?

“Cause it’s fun,” the 4-year-old said, before practicing the signs for all the colors of the rainbow.

Although the technique is beginning to spread, the Closson family is still a rarity in the area. At Logansport’s Little Children’s Ministry, just one of the 137 kids has been taught signs, employees said.

That child is 14-month-old Jackson Lythgoe, who has been working on sign language for 10 months, said his mother, Kristin Lythgoe.

“My sister-in-law did it when she had her little boy, and I saw how well it worked for them,” said the mother, adding that she didn’t know any signs when she started.

Kristin didn’t even learn about the educational benefits until a few months ago. That part is just “icing on the cake,” she said.

“Mostly, it cuts down on the frustration,” she said. “It really does. He can tell me what he wants without the temper tantrums or the crying fits. It’s a life saver.”

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