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eir pre verbal child s needs 5 6 9 it can be considered a useful method of communication in the early developmental stages since speech production follows children s ability to express themselves through bodily movement 2 10 11 baby sign is distinct from sign language baby sign is used by hearing parents with hearing children to improve communication 4 12 sign languages including asl bsl isl and others are natural languages typically used in the deaf community 2 sign languages maintain their own grammar and sentence structure 13 because sign languages are as complex to learn as any spoken language simplified signs are often used with infants in baby sign 4 5 teaching baby signs allows for greater flexibility in the form of sign and does not require the parent to learn the grammar of a sign language baby signs are usually gestures or signs taken from the sign language community and modified to make them easier for an infant to form it is common for the difference between symbolic gestures and baby signs to be mistaken symbolic gestures are a form of communication that children adopt before they develop the ability to produce spoken language 3 this includes pointing to what they want or using a hand motion in conjunction with a word which allows greater communication for infants writing on the topic jane collingwood states that infants from about six months of age can begin to learn the basic signs which cover such objects and concepts as thirsty milk water hungry sleepy pacifier more hot cold play bath and teddy bear 14 typically developing children will produce their first gestures between the ages of 9 and 12 months without any prompting or assistance from a caregiver infants learn how to use their body language eye gaze and hand gestures as a way to attract attention and communicate once children gain some language production they will couple language with gesture to further communicate 3 gesture remains present in all individuals at any age which is a distinguishing factor from baby sign pros and cons edit suggested benefits edit baby sign promotes communication before a child is able to verbally communicate with others 10 11 since gestures are part of normal speech teaching baby sign allows infants to learn an aspect of communication that is used with language it is not however designed to replace language 3 15 this demonstrates that infants are able to learn gestures before mastering verbal skills 16 17 therefore those who learn these simplified signs may enhance their cognitive development by gaining language skills through both visual and auditory modes 17 in an article in the psychologist gwyneth doherty sneddon has considered in detail the theory behind the growth of this phenomenon and some of the claims made by its supporters 12 doherty sneddon points out that baby sign is not entirely new 12 variations have been used by speech and language therapists for decades with children who have impairments to either their speech cognitive abilities or both 18 it is widely recognized that communication is at the heart of cognitive social emotional and behavioral development in children baby sign may assist in improving these significant developmental functions 19 baby signs create mutual attention between the parent and child leading to further elaboration of what the infant is communicating 20 a study collected self reports from mothers who had engaged in a baby sign training workshop to clarify whether or not signing with their child would create added parental stress and or enhance parent child communication 5 overall the parents did not express feeling heightened stress or frustration from the baby sign training process but rather they reported a greater ability to understand their child this richer communication was found to lead to a more positive interaction with their child which overall benefits the establishment of an earlier parent child bond 5 9 children who learned enhanced symbolic gestures performed better on both expressive and receptive verbal language tests compared to those who had not been encouraged to learn such gestures 20 receptive language means being able to recognize words and signs while expressive language involves the process of forming words or signs 20 research has shown that enhanced gesture input for hearing children is the first step toward successfully mastering gesture use and the use of representational form and symbolic communicative function 10 improved symbolic gestures may contribute to language development by providing children with increased knowledge of concepts by explaining the functions of the objects that they are exposed to 10 in support of expressive language development studies have shown that learning symbolic gestures can lead to advanced verbal development and accelerated language acquisition 10 20 an effective baby sign workshop also resulted in the improvement of numerous areas of development by comparing the child s results before and after the workshop 21 some of these areas included communicative cognitive social adaptive behavior physical and fine motor skill development of children 21 this enhancement however is short lived from between 12 and 15 months of age 10 doherty sneddon argues however that this timescale represents only a general norm 12 the enhancement and advantage is far more extended in the many toddlers who do not speak until well after their second birthdays doherty sneddon also states a key issue is ensuring that sufficient and appropriately designed research is available to back the claims made in relation to baby signing 12 a literature review concluded that although benefits were reported in 13 of 17 studies various weaknesses in the methods used for baby sign studies leave the evidence unsupported 22 certainly research into the effects of baby signing needs better control groups such as children who are involved in equally interesting and fun activities based around adult and child language interaction but not baby signing this suggestion for further research implies that it may not be the baby signs themselves that facilitate language development but rather the underlying benefit being active joint attention that is stimulated by baby sign 20 23 therefore the enhanced joint visual attention during parent child interaction empowers the infant to focus the topic and context of the conversation clarify concepts and creates added practice with symbolic interaction 20 these underlying mechanisms of baby sign are proposed to create benefits for the infant such as enhancing vocabulary advancing cognitive development reducing tantrums and frustration and improving the parent child relationship and communication more specifically language development is improved by advancing comprehension promoting literacy and successfully allowing the infant to express their needs so the parent becomes more responsive and observant of their baby 20 24 why it may be neither beneficial nor harmful edit researchers have suggested the possibility of parents and experimenters being overly liberal in attributing sign or word status to early attempts at communication by children 25 puccini and liszkowski found that when infants associate labels with objects they use verbal cues more frequently than gestures to make these associations 26 the process of further facilitating gesturing with baby signs is suggested to possibly cause interference toward children s mapping of these words this may be a result of infants lacking enough attention to take in these two types of information and process it at the same time 26 it is suggested that these labels and further through the facilitation of baby sign that it is unlikely that baby sign is facilitating speech development in infants baby sign programs encourage parents to improve their communication skills between themselves and their infants before they have developed speech 7 kirk and colleagues have found that the results of their study with hearing infants provided no evidence to support that a child s language development would benefit from learning baby sign they also found that children who participated in baby sign had similar language development to children who did not learn baby sign it is suggested that participating in baby sign may be an unnecessary effort with infants when being motivated by the hopes of advanced language learning for the child however it was found that mothers who used baby sign with their infants encouraged increased independence with them and supported a higher level of independence for their child 7 another conducted research study has shown that there are no significant differences found with language acquisition between infants who are receiving or not receiving exposure to baby sign including reaching language milestones 16 although no support for using baby sign was found in this study there was also no negative effects found to be associated with language development when using baby sign with your child it is possible that baby sign is working in support of infant s spoken language but was not found to further their later language development 16 the results of multiple studies regarding baby sign have found that the advantages provided do not go beyond children over the age of two years old 22 the results of this literature review have not shown support that baby sign increases a child s linguistic development when teaching a child baby sign an infant s attention is directed away from what they are interested in and is redirected towards the adult and the desired sign this interaction has been claimed to increase joint attention between parent and child but has yet to be studied enough in research literature 22 it has also been proposed by researchers that baby sign may increase parental stress rather than decrease it because of busy lifestyles that may be disrupting interactions between parents and children teaching baby sign outside of research settings does not allow for the parent to raise questions or concerns to trained individuals 5 reaching fundamental linguistic milestones and the natural course of children s language development has been suggested to be disrupted because of the unnatural intervention in language development that baby sign provides supported by the lack of support in prior studies which have been analyzed 22 learning baby sign edit there are numerous concepts to keep in mind when encouraging baby sign caregivers should ensure that they have their infant s attention maintain consistency with what sign is used and how it is used in relation to an item repeat signs often encourage the infant and be alert to recognize when the infant is signing back when it comes to infants who have not yet acquired language abilities signs are an easy and readily accessible form of communication 11 27 prior to infants learning specific signs or developing language skills they acquire the spontaneous use of gesture 3 an infant s first gesture may appear between 9 12 months of age often classified as pointing gesturing gradually increases as infants connect pointing to word meaning making a gesture plus word combination that will evolve into a two word combination 3 it is thought that gestures may be easier for infants to remember than a name alone since a gesture is representative of what the child can picture happening when thinking about the item 11 to determine how infant communication is influenced by gesture and speech iverson and goldin meadow conducted a study 3 infants in the study used eye gaze body position and vocalization to attract and direct their target audience s attention while gesturing to items results looked to see if the gestures that children use are related to the word they say while doing the gesture iverson and goldin meadow found that infants gesture for items that they did not have the ability to express with words when words were produced by the child they typically were ones that the child had already been gesturing for this shows that gesture is directly linked to the words that children will produce 3 symbolic gesture is the specific term that encompasses baby sign this form of gesture aids in communication through the use of hand movements that represent an item or feeling 28 infants are quick to note if there is a connection between an item and a symbolic gesture once they make the connection infants will imitate actions that are produced by the caregiver consistency from the caregiver is crucial during the teaching and feedback stage in order for infants to learn from repetition 27 this repetition applies to how the caregiver uses the sign and in what way the sign is associated with the object or emotion if the association changes then the child will have a harder time understanding how the symbolic gesture links to the item one way for caregivers to ensure the infant associates the symbolic gesture with the object or emotion is to gain the infant s attention and say the name of the object at the same time that the sign is performed 11 27 28 infants watch their caregiver during everyday routines and situations this observation allows infants to learn symbols by borrowing the actions from the observed routine 28 a natural association occurs between signs and items allowing infants to explore and express new ideas prior to language development infants will learn to associate a word with the general motion that they carry out while using an object such as throwing a ball after this association children begin to make connections with the word and motion alone in this case a throwing gesture infants now can make the throwing gesture to alert caregivers that they wish to throw a ball thus increasing their non verbal communication representative abilities such as these are further used by infants to demonstrate emotional feelings as they associate a motion or sign with a feeling 28 further studies demonstrate that increasing the use of gesture not necessarily use of a sign language can increase the richness of a child s linguistic development 10 it is suggested that learning signs happens over a period of time inferring the importance of caregivers being patient with children as it takes more than a brief interaction between parent and child 29 parent child interactions are vital to the learning of baby sign since the infant looks to the caregiver for guidance by consciously demonstrating the sign to the infant the caregiver and infant are sustaining joint attention which increases communication when caregivers aid infants in creating the sign with their hands they are further increasing encouragement repetition and communication 11 it is the caregiver s job to not only teach specific hand signals beyond what infants naturally pick up but to provide support and feedback to infants when signs are produced correctly 28 through making a connection and parental encouragement of that connection infants can learn 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