Can Sign Language Help You Communicate with Your Baby?

If you have a baby, you’re probably familiar with this scenario:  Your baby is crying and you just can’t figure out what will make the tears stop.  Does she want a bottle? Does he need a hug?  Before babies learn how to speak, they usually don’t have any other tools to explain their needs — but these days, some parents are using sign language in the hopes that they’ll be better able to communicate with their babies.

Parents Corina and Eric Douglas have been bringing their 11-month old daughter Claire to the classes for several months. During a break from class, they’re going over some signs for fruits and vegetables they learned in today’s class.

Using plastic replicas, the parents have shown their daughter the sign for peas and are now hiding the peas behind their back.  Eric now asks, “Do you want peas?” while doing the sign for peas.

“We show it to her first and then we’ll do the sign for it,” says mom Corina Douglas. “We try to make sure that we get eye contact since we know that when she has eye contact then that means she can understand it better.” Read more