Any evidence of using signs increasing or decreasing language development?
As
researchers and mothers, we’ve heard a lot about baby signing over the years
and like this reader, we’ve wondered, what does the evidence say? While baby
signing has become very popular, does scientific research support its use?
The
benefits of baby sign language can be a pretty controversial topic. There are
many parental reports of great benefits for infants taught baby signs, such as
decreased frustration and tantrums, early verbal skills, and improved
infant-parent interaction and bonding, just to name a few. However, the
scientific research is not as promising. The majority of studies have been
small and researchers have been unable to confirm that infant signing benefits
babies' language development. Limited research does suggest that babies can learn and
use sign language to help them communicate prior to using spoken words, but
whether or not this improves their language development is questionable. On the
other hand, there is also no research that shows that signing hinders language
development. There is also limited evidence showing that baby sign language
improves mother-infant interactions. Here is an overview of a few of the recent
studies that are out there.
Babies
first use gestures (like pointing or reaching) around 10 months of age. By the
end of the first year they also use symbolic gestures like pretending to drink
from a cup. A study by Kirk, et al (2013) sought to find out if encouraging the
early use of these gestures or baby sign language specifically, impacted
language development and infant-mother interactions. In this small, well-designed
study, gesture training (signs) did not significantly improve language
development. There was, however, some effect for males that scored low for
expressive communication (communicating
with others either verbally or with gestures) at the beginning of the study; they
experienced gains in their expressive communication abilities when exposed to
gestures compared to those that were not (though this analysis was only done
with 3 infants so it must be interpreted with caution). So what does this mean?
These results may indicate that using gesturing or sign in infants who have
weak language ability (defined by a lower score on a language assessment) may improve language development later on.
The
second part of this study looked more closely at the interactions between
mothers and infants to see if early gesturing or signing improved how mothers
related to their babies and understood their behavior. When mothers relate well
to their babies and understand their behavior, they have a more secure
infant-caregiver attachment and later ability to understand others’ thoughts
and feelings. While the study found no significant difference in maternal-infant
relatedness between gesture/signing groups and those who did not learn them,
there were small positive changes in the mothers’ responsiveness to their
infants’ needs and non-verbal cues.
A small
study by Gongora & Farkus (2009) showed some improvements in mother-infant
interactions, with higher frequencies of visual, tactile (touch) , and vocal mother-infant
interactions, when mother-infant pairs were exposed to an infant sign language
program.
Vallotten
(2012) examined the effects of using signs with infants in a group childcare
setting on caregiver responsiveness. The authors found that, at 10 months of
age, infants’ use of responsive gestures with their caregivers positively
influenced the quality of care they received. They also found that at 15 months
the frequency of infant signing slowed,
possibly because the infants were speaking more, while variety of signs used increased rapidly. Interestingly, caregivers
responded less often as signing variety increased. As variety of signs became
more common, their impact on caregiver behavior slowed.
Just as
understanding and responding to infant cues can improve infant-caregiver
interactions and lead to less parental stress, signing and gesturing may have a
similar effect after 8-10 months of age when babies begin gesturing. Studies
show that babies can learn and use signs to communicate with their caregivers,
and this may improve communication and lessen frustration for both the parent
and baby until the baby can talk. However, there is currently not enough
scientific evidence to show that baby signing enhances language development or
gives babies advanced learning capabilities compared to infants that don’t
sign. Practicing baby sign language can
be a great opportunity for parents and infants to bond and interact together. I
used a few signs when my daughter was a baby, especially around mealtime, and
it added to my understanding of her hunger and fullness cues. Using baby signs
has not been shown to be detrimental to infant language development. Research does show that verbally labelling objects can help language comprehension, so
while signing be sure to say the word out loud as well. What has been your
experience using infant sign language?
References
Kirk E,
Howlett N, Pine KJ, Fletcher BC. To sign or not to sign? The impact of
encouraging infants to gesture on infant language and maternal mind-mindedness.
Child Dev. 2013;84(2):574-90. Gongora X, Farkas C. Infant sign language program effects on synchronic mother-infant interactions. Infant Behav Dev. 2009;32(2):216-25.
Vallotten. Do infants influence their quality of care? Infants’ communicative gestures predict caregivers’ responsiveness. Infant Behav Dev. 2009;32:351-365.
I find signing to be extremely helpful both on its own and as a disambiguation between similar words. For instance, hippo and apple sounded exactly the same when my daughter said them, but the signs looked very different. Now I'm finding with my son that his verbal development is a little slower, and I sometimes can't identify the sign he's using. I wonder if the decreased understanding from caregivers as the variety of signs increases is partially due to lack of shared vocabulary between caretakers-e.g. my son and I both know the sign for boat, but I had to teach it to his sitter.
ReplyDeleteI wonder whether decreased advantages with variety of signs has to do with decreased understanding on the part of caregivers? I know with my son, whose words are still reasonably unarticulated at 21 months, he often signs something that could be, for instance, TRAIN or SHEEP or GENTLE or SIT or CATERPILLAR, and I need context (and of course to know the sign in the first place!) to identify what he's actually trying to say.
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