Study Shows That Babies Can Talk to Their Parents Through Infant Sign Language

DAVIS, Calif. —  Parents, translate this baby talk: “pant, pant, pant,” followed by a turning motion with one hand.

That, in one toddler’s sign language, means: “The dog wants out.”

Many babies learn to shake their heads “no,” nod for “yes” and wave “bye-bye” long before they can voice the words.

Two university psychologists, after studying baby gestures for 13 years, say infants are capable of saying much more with their hands and expressions--if somebody shows them how.

Most parents stop at a shake, nod and wave, said Linda Acredolo, a psychology professor at UC Davis. “They don’t realize that is the tip of the iceberg of what babies are capable of.”

Moreover, said Acredolo and collaborator Susan Goodwyn of Cal State Stanislaus, babies who learn “infant sign language” learn to talk earlier.

Results of their studies will be published next spring in a book, “How to Talk With Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk,” by Contemporary Books Inc.

The project took root when Acredolo’s daughter Kate, now 14, was 12 months old.

Acredolo noticed her baby sniffed when she pointed at flowers from a distance. When Kate spotted a daddy longlegs, she twisted her forefingers together, like the gesture from the “Eensy Weensy Spider” song. She made puffing sounds at aquarium fish, mimicking how her parents blew the fish mobile over her crib every night.

Acredolo said she wanted to make sure symbolic gesturing helped, not hurt, language development before involving others. So she did a number of preliminary studies first with Kate, her younger brother, Kai, and a few other volunteers.

Acredolo and Goodwyn later obtained a National Institutes of Health grant, and in the fall of 1989 began studying 140 families with 11-month-old babies. They followed the children’s language development for three years.

Thirty families were encouraged to teach their children simple signs for important objects in their lives--bottle, food and a menagerie of animals.

The other families were divided into two control groups--one that was taught to encourage their babies to speak but not gesture, and one that made no changes.

Babies in the signing group learned an average of 22 gestures, ranging from 12 signs to 50.

When it came to learning to speak, Acredolo said the signing babies generally outperformed babies in the oral group and far outdid the other control group.

Parents reported other benefits from teaching babies to sign: less frustration, improved self-esteem, more attentiveness and heightened interest in books. Parents said gesturing gave them a window into their infants’ thoughts and brought them closer together.

The babies frequently surprised parents and researchers.

One little boy who knew the sign for cat, using one hand to stroke the other, made a tiny gesture when he saw a kitten for the first time.

The mother of another boy was pushing him in his stroller through a mall when he made the sign for “crocodile”--hands clapping like jaws. Confused, she backed up and noticed a store window display of sport shirts with a crocodile logo.

Acredolo said babies abstracted symbols for use in different situations. For example, babies used the gesture for fish for real fish, pictures of fish and even crackers shaped like fish.

Children also started combining gestures into short sentences such as “more book” for “read some more” and “more up” for “lift me up again,” she said.