by Christy Douglas

Created on: July 16, 2009

No, no, and no! The fact is, teaching your child any language, and more than one, is advantageous to their intelligence. Baby sign language is a wonderful medium to communicate with your small children before they learn to speak with words. Imagine being able to communicate with your child clearly, rather than guessing at the meaning of his cries! Just think of it from a child's perspective and how frustrating it might be to not be able to have your most basic needs relayed to the people who provide them to you!

Experts say that babies can be taught sign language as early as the age of 6 months old. During this point in their development they are absorbing the many details of human interaction. They take notes on the way our mouths move to form words, the inflection in our voices, the language of our body movements and facial gestures. This is prime time to take the time to teach a few words in sign language that will allow children and parents to communicate better. Take for instance a few small words that might make your life a little easier when you are dealing with a small child - 'milk', 'mommy', 'daddy', 'help', 'all done', 'no', 'love' or 'more'. These are all very simple signs, and prove very helpful to a parent when dealing with a young child.

As with any language however, teaching takes time and patience, and most of all, consistency. The more you use signs the faster your child will pick up on the connection between using hands as a means to talk. If you have a pet, introducing the words, cat, dog or fish could be a fun way to learn sign language. A great benefit for you as the teacher, is the ease of use in teaching sign language to babies. Most of the signs are universal, you might wonder why you didn't start teaching this earlier. Here are a couple of examples: the sign for the word 'no' is to shake your pointer finger from left to right, the sign for 'all done' is to hold both hands on your shoulders and make a sweeping motion away from your body, and the sign for 'milk' is to squeeze your hand as if you were milking a cow.

Allowing your child to communicate their needs and desires is beneficial to both the child and parents. Not only does sign language provide an outlet for earlier communication between you and your child, but studies show that children who know how to sign a few words also know how to say more words when compared with children who don't know any sign language. The only impact on a child's speech development will be beneficial, not detrimental.

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