Babies can quickly learn how to sign. Both their understanding of language and their motor skills develop much faster than their ability to speak. And they love to mimic: Most babies, for example, discover how to wave and point long before they can say, “bye-bye” or “look at that!” According to experts, most baby signers speak earlier than babies who do not learn sign language.

Why should I use sign language with my baby?

The simplest answer is that using signs allows your baby to express with gestures before he or she is able to speak with words. Research shows that this can help your baby learn to speak with words sooner.

Many people teach their hearing children a little bit of ASL before they can even talk. It can help little ones to learn how to effectively express their needs better before their verbal communication develop. ASL is a visual language and it often uses variations of signs to create visual stories. The process of making these stories involves critical thinking that could be applied to storytelling and creating messages in other languages.

7 benefits Sign Language for babies

When you give babies specific tools to use for communication, it opens the door for them to explore language and understand how it works. Here’s a snapshot of the many important benefits of baby sign language:

1. Gives pre-verbal child ways to communicate
2. Aids the child’s understanding of Language
3. Increases communication opportunities
4. Decreases child’s frustration
5. Decreases caregivers frustration & confusion
6. Strengthens the social & emotional bond
7. Helps the child learn that movements have meaning

Is my toddler too old for baby sign language?

Simply, no.

Sign language can be a valuable tool for toddlers even once they can talk because it can be really hard for them to access and use the spoken words they know when flooded by big emotions (frustration, anger, etc.).

Baby signing experts believe that frustration and tantrums can be avoided by closing the gap between the desire to communicate and the ability to do so. Infants who learn baby sign language also are thought to gain psychological benefits, such as improved confidence and self-esteem.

Over 30 years of research has shown that nonverbal people with autism can learn to communicate with sign language. Many autistic children respond well to sign language because it’s visually based and provides a mode of quick communication. Research also shows that it may actually help nonverbal people to become verbal.