Baby signs

PINOY KASI

Baby signs
By Michael Tan

Inquirer
Last updated 02:20am (Mla time) 06/13/2007

MANILA, Philippines -- What will I write about? I was thinking this morning -- until Noy (I’m giving my son a pseudonym since I write about him from time to time) came to me wringing his hands. “Change diaper?” I asked to confirm, and he nodded.

As I went to get a diaper, I remembered that some time back, I promised readers an article about the wonders of baby signing, so here it is.

Noy is not deaf, but he uses sign language because I taught him to. The baby signing movement began in the United States about 20 years ago, but is not widely well known yet. My sister, who lives in Canada and specializes in speech therapy, endorsed it quite enthusiastically when she visited a few weeks ago. She taught Noy two signs within a few days and I’ve taken over, now convinced they should give a Nobel Prize to the ones who invented this baby signing, considering how much peace it has brought to so many homes.

Noy is a year-and-a-half old, and like most babies his age, he can’t quite talk yet. He tries and occasionally succeeds, for example, saying “Tat,” originally to refer to cats, but now extended to include dogs. When he can’t get through, that’s when he whines, cries or shrieks. But that rarely happens ever since we’ve gone into signing.

One of the courses I teach at the university is linguistic anthropology, so I know that signing makes sense. It’s unrealistic to expect babies to speak as we do. Like our closest relatives, the chimpanzees, infants have a vocal apparatus that can’t quite form words as human adults do. Notice that infant babbling is mainly vowels, the consonants requiring a bit more development (for one thing, it’d help if they had more teeth!).

Human language eventually emerged, thanks not just to our vocal apparatus but also to the kind of brain we have, which allows abstractions and reflection. Filipinos tend to think babies are unthinking ("wala pang malay”), but in fact they do think quite early but can’t speak, so they use gestures. Notice how they vigorously point to show they want something (or want it taken away), and when they want to know what it is. Babies do think, and are trying to learn as much as they can.

Baby inquirers

You’re probably getting my drift now. Babies are avid inquirers and if they do this by pointing, why not teach them more ways of signing what they want? Spoken language is after all just another form of signification.

In the late 1970s, Joseph Garcia was working as an interpreter for the deaf in Alaska and noticed that the hearing babies of deaf parents were communicating much earlier than the children of hearing parents. Intrigued, he focused on baby signing as his doctoral research at Alaska Pacific University. Meanwhile, at the University of California at Davis, psychologists Linda Acredolo and Susan Goodwyn were also doing something similar, spurred by Acredolo’s observations of her own daughter’s attempts at signing.

Garcia’s research found that children could produce simple signs at around eight months and that when, later, they could speak, they had a better grasp of language and grammar. Acredolo and Goodwyn did a bigger study, comparing children who learned signing and those who didn’t, and following the children for eight years. They found the signing children had a better grasp of grammar and (now, this is still controversial) higher IQs. Other studies have since found signing children to be better at reading and spelling.

Now, I don’t really care about IQ claims. I think what’s most important is reducing the frustration babies (and parents) have when the child can’t communicate, and allowing them to be as expressive as they can.

Any disadvantages? There was some concern that signing children might stagnate and not move on to speaking, but the fear has been dispelled by studies.

Teaching the signs

It’s actually quite simple to teach babies to sign. The books that are available are American so naturally they suggest using American Sign Language, but you can certainly use Filipino Sign Language, or even come up with your own system. The reason we use one of the established sign language systems is that the child learns an extra language that’s already being used—in this case, by the deaf.

The signing books usually start with the signing for “eat.” The best time to teach this is right before a meal. You take the child’s hand, and bring it to her mouth (in Filipino, “pagsubo”) and ask, “Eat?” or “Kain?” (be consistent though with the word you use). You can also demonstrate the sign yourself. Follow the signing with food. Repeat this several times. Because eating is so essential to the baby, he’s bound to pick up very quickly. Soon, if the child seems irritable, you can ask, “Eat?” and he’ll respond with the sign to confirm. Or, come to you and sign when he is hungry.

A second sign you can tackle is “more” -- again best taught while eating. You pause while feeding and then ask, “More?” followed by the sign, which is bringing the fingertips of your two hands together several times. You should see Noy now when he’s hungry: he’ll sign both “eat” and “more” -- and more, and more. And the rare times he’s full, he just shakes his head when you ask, “More?”

A very useful sign is “hurt,” where you get the tips of your index fingers to touch, over the painful area. This is a bit tricky. You may have to pretend here by hitting your head on the wall and grimacing and then signing for hurt, which is touching the tips of your index fingers over the painful part. Babies are born sadists and they’ll laugh their heads off with your antics, but eventually they realize it is an important sign. And because you respond by consoling them whenever they hurt (I do by kissing the afflicted part), just watch them sign for “hurt” even when they’re not.

Most of the time, they do mean hurt when they sign, and that saves so much trouble when you’re trying to figure out why they’re throwing a tantrum. It’s the same thing with “sleep” and “drink” or even “take a bath.” (Noy has more initiative, going to the closet and bringing out a towel.) There are signs for everything (Noy just learned “rain” last night), including emotions although this will have to come when they’re a bit older. Even when they can speak, babies often can’t quite identify the emotions they have and you’ll have to process this with them. (Mind you, some adults never quite learn either to identify, much less deal with their emotions.)

Local bookstores now carry quite a few books on baby signing. I’m using Diane Ryan’s “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Baby Sign Language,” but there are also books from the innovators: “Baby Signs” by Linda Acredolo and Susan Goodwyn and Joseph Garcia’s “Sign with Your Babies.”

Your child is discovering the world, and you’re discovering his world. It’s an exciting time that won’t ever be repeated, so take advantage of it with both sign and spoken language.