Talk:Sign language in infants and toddlers

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Contents

[edit] errors

The statement "topic/comment [is] the grammar of spoken languages which lack a written form" is completely false. Lots of languages with clear grammatical subjects are unwritten, and conversely written languages such as Chinese have been claimed to be topic-comment. The adaptation of writing to a language does not radically restructure its grammatical system!

Also, "Look! Squirrel!" is not a topic-comment construction (unless you consider the pointing to be the topic, in which case "[point] Squirrel!" is a better example), and "There is a squirrel roughly to the north-east of us, approximately 20 feet away." does not have a grammatical subject or object, so it does not at all illustrate a subject-verb-object construction. --kwami 08:55, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Non-pay external links?

Most all of the sites I seem to find on the Internet are pay-sites. This makes me a little dubious. Does anyone have any good free sites? Thanks! Ewlyahoocom 18:49, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't think there's a whole lot to it. The books I've seen are mostly testimonials to convince you to try it. There's maybe half a chapter of useful info such as at what age you might see results, the importance of repetition and reinforcement (you know, general pedagogy), reduction in temper tantrums, greater eloquence once speech is learned, and children passing sign on to their younger sibs after they've ceased to use it with their parents. Then there's the debate over ASL vs. true baby sign; for the former, you can get a regular ASL dictionary; in the case of the latter, the book will give suggestions for useful words and ways to sign them, but in the end will tell you that the best signs are the ones you and your child come up with together. So other than a feel-good exercise, 90% of the text is useless once you've decided to go this route. I doubt the pay sites offer anything more than the books. kwami 19:56, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
I just reversed an addition of a pay site (http://www.babysign.co.uk/) as spam. Should I not have done it? --Phelan 06:29, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Another pay site was added([1]). This time I just moved it down and marked it as a commercial site. Phelan 13:21, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cons

I'm most interested in the cons. There seems to be lots of sites saying how wonderful it is, but what research contradicts or supports the claims.

  • I actually haven't heard of any yet. I've got a friend who's been studying ASL/interpreting for many years now and has studied baby signs from a professional point of view, and she only had positive things to say about it as well. The biggest "con" claim seems to be that it will discourage kids from learning to talk, and that's been refuted by most professionals that've actually studied the situation. I'm looking forward to trying this once my baby's born. --Maelwys 20:07, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Another possible con could be that it would be more difficult to learn normal sign language after learning the simplified one. However, I don't think that children that young can be imprinted to such a degree. I'd ask a developmental psychologist (or a psycholinguist) for more information about possible cons. - Tom Tolnam, 167.128.45.97 20:25, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


How interesting all the thoughts on teaching Sign Language to babies! I had an interesting experience with Sign Language. I had a day care in my home for 25 years! I know Sign Language myself and see nothing hard in learning it. During my 25 years as a day care provider, I had a child come into my day care that was hearing and did not know how to talk. This child was 3 year old and was afraid of voices. Reason? The childs Mother was Deaf. I noticed how frighteded this child was when I spoke, so I decided to Sign and talk at the same time. (I had other children of various ages not talking yet.) with in a matter of a few weeks, I noticed the other children signing to me! I was totally amazed! I was teaching this one child to talk and the other children picked up on the Sign Language faster than the child that was learning to talk! All children that was in my day care spoke quickly, had rich vocabularies, and to this day most are in high School or older, told me Sign Language really helped them in school! It is a win win situation for children and parents. Sign Me a believer in Sign Language for babies, children, and adults.

[edit] Sources!/Cleanup

I made an attempt to remove some of the howto-like statements and the bulk of the language that was written in the second-person. Further edits and wikification are probably necessary, however. There are also several unverified claims in this article for which sources should be cited. This one in particular is bugging me: "However, all available research shows that hearing children who sign as infants go on to develop particularly rich spoken vocabularies"

If "all available research" shows it, then would it really be that hard for the author to back up their claim? Explaining the origins of terminology like "highly motivating" and "need based" would also be helpful. MrZaiustalk 05:54, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Hello - I wanted to join the discussion here. In my book on baby sign, I use the terms "need based" and "high impact" when talking about different types and motivations for babies who are learning to sign. I don't want to edit the main article because I don't know how, but here is a brief paragraph:

"Need-Based Signs are those signs that reflect a baby's needs. Anything dealing with sustenance, comfort, warmth, sleep, and safety would fall in this category. High-Impact Signs are signs connected with objects, activities, or situations that you know your own baby finds highly interesting or extremely fun." Beyer, Monica. Baby Talk. 1st ed. New York City: Tarcher, 2006. 19.

I agree with you here. As soon as I get back to town and have steady access again to the computer, I'll definitely put in the research that backs this up, as well as the nay-sayers. Be on the lookout!

This is information makes no sence at all. You have just wasted like an hour of your time!

[edit] This isn't an article, it's an advertisement

This article is written from a decidedly advocatory point of view. It doesn't give objective information about baby sign language. It's an abuse of Wikipedia's open forum policy. 66.236.15.114 15:50, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

It's been worse: [2] If it could use further cleanup, or if you have the sources needed to point to objective analysis of the topic, then you too can help. MrZaiustalk 16:32, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I tried to fix some of the non-objective information in my edit today, but I'm pretty new to Wikipedia's NPOV, and I couldn't find any sources who criticized Baby Sign (either as a detrimental or even ineffective practice), so I'm not sure if I helped or hurt the objectivity of the article with my edits. The former, I hope.

Can anyone find some peer-reviewed articles that show negligible benefit to baby sign language? I'm not saying there *s* a negligible benefit, only that the existence of such a study would show that there was evidence on both sides (as opposed to singular endorsement).

[edit] Unexplained Move

The undiscussed move with unclear rationale introduced a title that seems to imply coverage of sign language in disabled children as well. Please explain or revert. MrZaiustalk 20:22, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

"Baby Sign" seems to be a brand name. This article isn't about one particular business model, it's about the entire practice of teaching sign to infants and small children. I can't find any rationale for always referring to it as "Baby Sign", that proper noun is not what should be used. Photouploaded 02:16, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Suitability

I came here looking for the recommended starting age for Baby Sign but, alas, I could not find this information. I treat Wikipedia as my second brain so I was most disappointed that I was let down. Indeed I am reconsidering a formal request for a refund. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.70.152.142 (talk) 19:58, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if there have been any studies looking at optimum starting age. I think it might be difficult to find one. Doherty-Sneddon certainly doesn't refer to any. But I think there is a tacit assumption that for signing with infants to have most benefit it should be done before vocal language starts to emerge. I don't see that there can be much negative impact of signing from birth, although a more sensible start time might be when the baby can recognise hand gestures as being different. My guess is that's going to be some time in the first few months, as soon as the focus of attention starts to open out from just faces and facial expressions. For hearing babies I suppose there may be a pre-adaptation to mother's voice even pre-birth, so vocal communication gets a head start. With non-hearing babies maybe gesture will have greater significance ealier. But not being a practionner, it's hard to say. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:25, 15 May 2008 (UTC)