BABY SIGNING

Baby Signing is the practice of using physical gestures to aid communication with non-verbal babies/children. It teaches your baby to communicate with you before they can speak.

Many people think Baby Sign hinders your child's verbal development. When your baby starts to verbalise her desires she will firstly sign and say the word together and then eventually the signing will gradually fall away.

Baby Sign is thought to improve verbal communication. Personally when I sign with my baby I'm having a conversation with him, normally using at least twice as many verbal words than I would normally. It has been shown that children who signed as babies have 50 more spoken words in their vocabularies by the age of two that children who didn't sign.

Baby Signing should not be used to replace speaking with your child. If you sign "Milk", always ensure you say the word at the same time. If you are unable to say the word, do not sign it either.

Baby Signing can help greatly when your child reaches their "Terrible Twos". Tantrums at this age are usually related to their frustrations at not being able to vocalise the desires. By teaching babies how to communicate with you, they have no need to have a tantrum - they can tell you what they want and what they are thinking.

Baby Sign classes are a great way to bond with your baby and provide social interaction for your child at a young age. It is also a great opportunity for you to meet with other parents who have similar age children.