by Jennifer Defrates

Created on: January 17, 2007   Last Updated: April 25, 2007

My mother-in-law is a speech therapist. She spends her days working with children under the age of three who struggle with communication. As a teacher, I understand the importance of communication, but signing to children was a new idea to me. I watched my mother-in-law working with one of her friend's adopted children and he was basically unable to communicate effectively in a verbal manner, but he understood many signs and for an active two year old was able to communicate effectively and repsonded to sign as well. I was intrigued.

I had learned sign language from an aunt who interprets for the deaf community in southern California and used it with deaf classmates in college. I began to research the benefits of using it with children. What I learned is that children understand language before they are physically capable of speech. Teaching them simple signs like yes, no, more, please, finished, thank you, etc. will allow them to tell their parents what they need or want instead of the tears or tantrums that most children must use to be understood. While most parents get pretty good at interpreting the various cries and facial expressions, there can be no substitute for real communication with your child. Imagine understanding the reason your son cries at bedtime is because he is afraid of his stuffed animals' shadows in the nightlight or the creaking shutters outside his window instead of having to ineffectively listen to screaming and practice painful tough love on a toddler.

Furthermore, the earlier and more varied communications a child is exposed to increases vocabulary and language skills in general. In a multi-cultural, education driven society, language skills are at a premium, so not only will sign language give your child many benefits in his/her relationship to you, it may also give him/her skills that will last a lifetime.

Some parents fear that if their children learn sign language, their speech will be delayed, but in practice this is not the case. Children who learn sign language often speak sooner because they have already grasped the concept of communicating to meet their needs. Also, children will do what is easiest and eventually spoken language becomes easier, but they will still remember the signs, which comes in handy for a quick "knock it off" in church or in other public venues.

Basically, sign language can be used to teach small children to communicate before they can physically speak as well as helps children with a variety of disabilities and has numerous benefits for the entire family.

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