Language development can be a concern for many parents. As the daughter of a speech and language therapist, mother of 2 sons (one with an auditory processing difficulty), former teacher of special education and currently a teacher of English language learners (I’m old) I’ve learned a little about language. Today, I write about the idea of signing with your hearing infant/toddler/child.

The Magic of Language

I have always had a fascination in language. I remember vividly, sitting in the bathtub at age 4 talking with my mother about words. At some point, I said, “Is there a job you can have with words?” She said, “Yes. It’s a linguist.” From then on, when anyone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, that’s what I told them! Some years later, probably around 6th grade, I visited with a neighbor that had a baby that was just beginning to talk. Not babble……..talk. I remember walking home thinking that language was magic. I was wondering how it was that the baby had gone from making sounds, to repeating words, to using those single words (all a “garbage in, garbage out” process) to using words to express original thoughts. How did she know how to communicate the thoughts without modeling them? Magic. It goes without saying, I’m a word nerd.

Language Development Techniques

When my first son was born, I did all the usual stuff to help with his language development. I read to him. I talked to him. I recited rhymes. I played lots of music and sang lots of songs. Something else I did was to pair signs with words. When he was very young, I would just do the sign with the word. I chose concrete words, eat, baby, mom, dad, chair, milk, etc. As he got a little bigger, when I would put on his shoes, I would say “shoes” and sign “shoes” and then take his little hands and make the sign (he was too young to make the signs on his own). After a while, he was doing the signs when I did them, and eventually he was doing them on his own. He did not use the sign in place of the word, but along with it. By the time he was 3, he had a signing vocabulary of over 300 words. As is often the case, my ambitious plan to make ASL (American Sign Language) his second language fell to the wayside when his brother was born. I did the same thing with his brother, but his signing play (I say play instead of instruction, because I always approached it as play) was abridged earlier in life because he had much more important play to do with his brother.

Cut to both boys in their teen years. We decided as a family to take ASL classes. Startlingly, the boys and I remembered almost all of what had we learned together, but not used in over 10 years… hmm. Could there be a lesson here? Is there something more we can do with our kids besides hand motions to songs like the “Itsy Bitsy Spider”?

Why Signing Improves Language Development

When I began teaching language learners, I decided to pair signing with their English. I found that they learned and remembered the words and concepts very easily when I was able to use signs in the instruction. They had more difficulty when I was not able to do so. Another benefit was that they had less frustration, because they could communicate with their signs before they could consistently use the English word.

When I did my second language training (I know – sort of bass akwards, but I got hired before I was certified) one of the keystone strategies of second language instruction was TPR, total physical response. It is the notion of pairing a physical action with what’s being taught, in this case, English.

When I took Neuroscience and Language (I’m tragically over-educated), part of the presentation focused on how engaging the body while introducing new concepts increases the learner’s success in retention dramatically. Everything was coming together.

Often, we as parents do things because they’re fun or just seem right. Many times, if we do some research, or for those of us that are not prone to research, end up in a class, we find it seemed right because it works and it works for a good reason. In this case, if you don’t want to listen to me, you can check it out with experts in language development and neuroscience. Signing with kids is easy and fun, and it helps them (bonus). The benefit is far-reaching. Signing makes brain pathways that will support their language development (and, if they choose, second and third langauge development) throughout life. To this day (my sons are now 29 and 26) if I close both hands, thumbs facing and gently strike my hands together twice, they say “shoes”.

Be honest… you just did it… didn’t you?