This is a question that often comes up, sometimes by a mother who is feeling guilty because she isn’t doing it with her baby, even though her friends use it with theirs, sometimes with a childcare provider who has heard about programs that tout the use of baby sign language as an educational add-on. I do not mean to undermine parents or caregivers who must use sign language or those who have have a need to supplement their verbal communications with babies. if it is truly helpful to you, read no further. However, if you want to hear why it’s not a necessity for typically developing children, read on….
A couple of decades ago (maybe three), I remember when a copyrighted set of materials began to appear via a pyramid-type direct marketing system became all the rage with young mothers wanting to make a few dollars while they were home with their children. This is when the baby sign language fad started, and it has since become one of the “things” mothers are “supposed” to do with their babies to make them smarter. I think both practices persist because, in some way, they make adults feel like they are giving children something extra.
For thousands of years, no one used codified sign language with their babies. They naturally used gestures to help children learn to speak, and they watched for their child’s nonverbal cues to understand them. As a parent, I raised my children the old-fashioned way without any ding to their IQ scores or communication skills. As an educator, I wanted to back up my opinion of baby sign language as an unnecessary component of modern “optimal” parenting. So I started asking around….
The first person I asked was Dr. Sima Gerber, a distinguished expert in speech and language pathology at City University of New York. During the Q&A portion of her presentation at the Zero to Three Conference a few years ago I asked her what she thought about the baby sign language trend. She said that teaching babies sign language is not necessary if they are responding appropriately to your verbal and non-verbal cues, though it is useful for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and other difficulties in relating and communicating. She went on to say she finds it actually disrespectful to the community that depends on sign language as primary communication, to co-opt a baby-talk, dumbed-down version of their beautiful language (if it is not going to be a genuine second language).
Then, during a Pikler training in San Francisco in 2015, with psychologist Anna Tardos, who was the Director of the Pikler Institute in Budapest, following in the footsteps of her mother, its founder, pediatrician Emmi Pikler. The look on her face as my question to her was translated spoke volumes; it said, “Why would you want to do that?” She reiterated a major theme of the whole training, which is paying attention to the child’s movements, gestures, expressions and signals carefully so as to understand what the child is trying to tell us. A few words of sign language do not promote the subtle, rich exchange of emotional information and understanding that are present in authentic conversation. The baby’s own self-invented signs should be more than sufficient, if we’re paying attention.
This position on the question was further reinforced by world-renowned psychoanalyst and researcher, Dr. Allan Schore, who has pioneered a new way of understanding early relationships, based on the correlation of Bowlby’s Attachment Theory and hundreds of studies in neurobiology. He is known as the father of Modern Attachment Theory, and his studies and writing center on how right-brain-to-right-brain communication between parent and infant unfolds in ways that promote either security and trust, or insecurity. He expressed grave concern that when parents shift to the use of simple signs they will be moving into the left brain, which is much less emotionally attuned than the right brain. He would rather they trust in the many ways in which communication happens unconsciously. These include posture, gesture, tone of voice (prosody), facial expressions that include subtle muscle shifts, eye movements, pupil dilatation, skin coloration, and even olfactory exchanges that we are consciously unaware of.
These are the mechanisms of attunement that babies depend upon to learn to navigate the social world in the first two years of life. And the social world is, for humans, the fundamental “environment” that children must adapt to and navigate to find their way in life. This is probably why these right brain parts are in a rapid growth spurt from the third trimester in utero, until the rapid growth of the left side begins in earnest between 18 and 24 months. Get the essentials first, then add on all the rest.
I do want to reiterate that a parent or caregiver who is fluent and regularly relies on sign language such as ASL can achieve this nuanced, fluid kind of communication with a baby…but not a person who is dabbling in it as a foreign language, which sign language is to most people. This discussion is not meant to disrespect the importance of sign language to those who really need and embrace it fully. And if a person is fluent and able to impart the full spectrum of communication in two languages, that is different. However, emotional content will always be more subtle in a parent or caregiver’s first language, but that is another topic.
Imagine this scenario: A 1 year old has been playing with her toys for quite a while, but is starting to be depleted. She is losing focus, and her play becomes a little disorganized and fitful. Mom is busy doing something, but her daughter makes a whining noise and she looks up. The baby starts crawling toward her. Because her mom is sensitive to her rhythms, she looks up at the clock. Ah…it’s 9:45 AM. A little past “second breakfast” and nap time. She says to her baby, “You’ve been playing. Are you getting tired? I bet you are hungry.” The baby’s eyes brighten. Hunger is the immediate feeling she is having. The expectant look on her face and the fact that she crawls toward her mother speaks volumes. Mother puts her task aside, and picks her daughter up. They understand one another perfectly; hunger is abated and harmony prevails….
Further Resources:
Schore, A.N. (2019). The development of the unconscious mind. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
Tardos, A., Ed. (2007). Bringing up and providing care for infants and toddlers in an institution. Budapest: Pikler-Lóczy Társaság.