by Jael Ravalyn

Created on: May 19, 2008

"But, will it hinder my child's verbal use of language?"

Any parent, especially those with young babies and toddlers, are concerned about how and when their kids will begin to speak. When you hold your infant longing to hear what her/his first word will be and you hear about the sign language craze, trust me you are less focused on the novelty of popular new trends than on how you can help your baby. So, of course, if you consider using baby sign with your offspring, it helps to know if there are any drawbacks. I researched. Here are some resources you can check out to answer the question-will sign delay speech development?

References
Acredolo, L. & Goodwyn, S. (1988). Symbolic gesturing in normal infants. Child Development, 59, 450-466.
Baker, S. A., Golinkoff, R. M., & Petitto, L. (2006). New insights into old puzzles from infants' categorical discrimination of soundless phonetic units. Language Learning and Development, 2(3), 147-162.
Goodwyn, S., Acredolo, L., & Brown, C. (2000). Impact of symbolic gesturing on early language development. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 24, 81-103.
Hildebrandt, U. & Corina, D. (2002). Phonological similarity in American Sign Language. Language and Cognitive Processes, 17(6), 593-612.
Iverson, J.M. & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2005). Gesture paves the way for language development. Psychological Science, 16(5), 367-371.
Krentz. U. C. & Corina, D. C. (2008). Preference for language in early infancy: the human language bias is not speech specific. Developmental Science, 11(1), 1-9.

By the way, I discovered from the literature that the answer is no, IT WILL NOT DELAY SPEECH. Actually it will facilitate it with higher chances of earlier acquisition of speech. 103 eleven month olds were divided into three groups, one test group and two control groups (Goodwyn, Acredolo, & Brown, 2000). One group of parents knew nothing of the research intent and the other control group was instructed to make an effort to model verbal labels. The test group's parents were to teach the infants sign. All groups of infants were tested in language proficiency at 15, 19, 24, 30, and 36 months. Results showed that the sign group had the advantage on the vast majority of language tests suggesting that sign does not hamper language development but may actually facilitate it (Goodwyn et al.). Researchers in another article tying symbolic gesturing to speech development conclude, "it may even be the case that successful communication with gestures as object labels adds to the child's overall conviction that he or she is on to something' with this labeling business and thus speeds along the naming process in the verbal modality" (Acredolo & Goodwyn, 1988, p. 464).

The following should be taken as case study with the limited generalizeability that implies.I took classes in ASL and used it to teach my first child when she was born. She was saying her first words by 5 months (Hi, Daddy, Hello) and signing for food, milk, more, again, mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, dog, and water. My second baby said her first word (Mama)by four months but used less sign (she signed more and milk) despite my efforts to teach her, but at 10 months she is doing just fine in vocal language use it just hasn't been as fast as her older sister's language development. But they are both overall above the curve.

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