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Should You Teach Your Baby Sign Language?
One of the trendiest baby communication
techniques being talked about lately is sign language.
The main reason for its popularity is the fact that
it allows you to communicate with your baby before a
spoken language is learned.
With baby sign language your baby is
able to tell others exactly what they want and need.
Because of this, the number of baby tantrums can be
greatly reduced.
Every parent has witnessed the familiar
signs of frustration in their baby before baby communication
skills are developed and baby is unable to let others
know what they are feeling and what they may need.
Gestures are certainly within the range
of a baby's repertoire long before the ability to articulate
words is developed. Now, no one is suggesting that you
sit down and attempt to teach your baby using the American
Sign Language system. You just need a fairly small range
of gestures that mean "I want", "please
help", "I'm hungry" etc. If these gestures
are understood by both baby and parent, they will serve
the purpose of improving communication.
You should start teaching your baby
sign language or, more accurately, basic gestures, by
example. Because these gestures are visual in nature
they are much easier for your baby to learn than spoken
words.
You need to get to the stage where your
baby begins to connect a basic gesture with an action,
activity or object. If you do this consistently, you
will find that over time your baby starts to mimic these
gestures. You can also accompany the gesture with the
word so that, eventually, your baby will graduate to
using the spoken form.
Babies learn by imitating what they
see adults do, so if you are consistent with using some
basic gestures for certain activities and objects, you'll
be surprised at how quickly your baby picks them up.
The most important thing is to keep it fun. Turn the
activity of learning sign language into a game and you
will see the best results.
Plan to develop a positive and informative
method of baby sign language early. This communication
with your baby will be a great platform for communication
and assist in their growing experience.
Remember, good communication between
you and your offspring will be the basis from which
they will develop the most important life skill of all...being
able to communicate with others as they make their way
in the world.
You will also tend to find that the
better the communication channels you have with your
child, the better behaved they will be.
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