Babies: Prewired to Learn Language

How is it that children as young as three years of age are speaking in full sentences and expressing all their needs with little or no difficulty? Language systems are extremely complex, and yet, infants and toddlers are able to grasp the phonemic combinations and the grammatical rules to be able to communicate with near fluency. Professor Noam Chomsky of MIT in the 1960’s made major discoveries in the area of child language development when he proposed that language ‘was an innate property of the human species’. Infants’ brains are actually prewired for the learning of language. That is not to say that their brains are prewired with language, rather their brains are prewired for the LEARNING of language. Babies are influenced by the language that they are exposed to; their ability to learn the languages that they are exposed to, is made possible by their predisposition to decipher the complexities of language.

If a baby were placed in a room with no interactions, that baby would not come out speaking a language. On the contrary, babies who are deprived of human interaction, show significant delay in their language acquisition and in fact such deprivation has a negative impact on their brain development. In other words, the first three years of a baby’s life are critical in establishing neural pathways necessary for language and brain development, as demonstrated in the 1997 National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care.

Numerous studies have shown that the effects of language stimulation and the growth of brain pathways are critical in the first three years of life. Placing a child in front of a television or a computer does not promote language development the way verbally interacting with the child enhances brain development. Likewise, an environment that exposes the child to sign language - spatial verbalizations and a language system with linguistic structure - as demonstrated in Susan Goodwyn, Ph.D. and Linda Acredolo, Ph.D.’s study found when examining children, ages 3, 4 and 8 that children who learned sign language out performed children who had not been exposed to sign language on every cognitive, linguistic and intellectual level

APPROXIMATION

You are signing with your baby for quite some time, and waiting for the day she will sign back. One day, here it is… your baby is attempting a sign. Your initial response, “was that really the sign for MILK?” “Was he really signing MORE?” I often say to parents, if you think it is an attempt to communicate, it is a sign! Now, respond with positive reinforcement.
Often times your baby’s sign doesn’t really look like the sign that you’re signing. Due to your child’s developing dexterity and fine motor skills, she cannot quite grasp the exact formation. While your baby tries to mimic your sign, the sign may look different. You may ask yourself,” does my baby really signing or just playing with his fingers?”
For example, the sign for MORE is to bring all five fingertips from one hand to the five fingertips of the other hand and tap them together. Many children will approximate the sign into one fingertip onto the palm of the other hand.
See pictures: all children sign MORE.
Approximation is signing! It is almost like saying dada for daddy at first. Please, do not manipulate her hands to form the right sign. Keep demonstrating the correct formation, encouraging your child to sign, and the right hand shape will come with time. This is one of the reasons that it is important to sign ASL so everyone will sign the same way without modifying the sign by their needs.
By accepting your child’s approximations, and encouraging her to keep signing, you will reduce her level of frustration. Consistency is the key. If you use the ASL version repeatedly, your child will eventually follow your lead and sign that version.

Let the Sign Shine!
etel

Etel Leit, M.S.
Founder & Owner http://www.signshine.com/
Publisher http://www.babysignshine.com/

Accepting Me, Accepting Others Unlike Me

Some benefits of signing and learning more than one language seem evidently obvious at times. Consider when two children are in the midst of trying to express their wants and needs. One is pointing while grunting or making a noise that seems rather uncomfortable whereas the child next to this little one is signing what she needs and trying to say the word at the same time.

We see that American Sign Language is helping our little ones not only communicate their needs quicker but develop their language skills at the same time.

What other skills are they learning?

I remember learning that a child that learns more than one language may become more acceptive of others. In the Fall of 2007, The Duke University Talent Identification Program offered an online newsletter to parents. Martha G. Abbott, Director of Education for the American Council of the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) described those who learned a second language were “open and accepting of people who speak other languages and come from other cultures.”

I think in return, these little ones will also be more acceptive of their own distinct differences from others and unique characteristics.

Link to 2007 newsletter mentioned above.

Written by Shawna Tran: www.mybabydetails.com

Power of Music with Signs

As a music therapist, I knew that my graduate degree in Deaf education would have to be put to work that included music. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to work in a therapeutic preschool where I had a class of deaf children whose parents were hearing, together with hearing children whose parents were Deaf. Many of the deaf children with hearing parents who didn’t sign, did not have access to language until they began school, where their hearing counter parts with deaf, signing parents, were much further along. So learning Sign in the classroom opened many doors for these 3 and 4 year olds. Finally they knew what to call a table, a book, an apple, a friend… and signing while singing songs helped to solidify their new language. Seeing the sign for “stop” watching hearing classmates stop marching, and noticing the vibrations of the drum diminishing, helped them to understand the meaning of stop---both for their movement and for sound.  

Aside from my own experience, research does support the benefits of music and sign. An article by Patricia Ivankovic and Ingrid Gilpatric in a 1994 issue of Perspectives in Education and Deafness includes a table of songs that teach parts of speech. For example, Where is Thumbkin teaches verbs, nouns, pronouns, and sequencing; coupled with ASL, deaf students can fully participate in the learning process. An article by Heather A. Schunk in a 1999 issue of the Journal of Music Therapy focuses on the receptive language benefits of singing & signing for ESL students. Steve Kokette, the producer of award winning signed song videos featuring Deaf performers, wrote in 1995 on the benefits of sign paired with music--for the level of sign learned when presented through songs, and the memory of rhythms when presented with sign. Also in 1995, Buday wrote an article for the Journal of Music Therapy highlighting the benefits of signed songs on sign and speech imitation by children with autism.

Music aids the development of speech. Even without using sign language, singing simple songs teaches your child how language is constructed. According to Jessica Pitt from the Pre-School Music Association: "Babies seem to learn best when songs are experienced through their bodies. Movement and music greatly enhance acquisition of language." Sign language can provide that meaningful movement to music.  Learn more at www.mybabyfingers.com!  

HELP!!!

if there was a sign i could tell everyone to teach their child...it would be "help!" this sign has been absolutely invaluable to our family! my son, now 16 months, has been signing his approximation of "help" for months now, and it has saved us from meltdowns, confusion, and frustration!

not only has it saved us from things...but it has provided us with a sort of trust...leo asks for help, and i know he's in need of help. what also comes of this, is that he asks for help when he's ready. i'm not jumping in on his own exploration and development. and he doesn't have to get upset when he is ready...he simply asks.

here he is, at 15 months, asking for help with opening a banana (after signing banana, too :) )

Give the Gift of Language

The holidays bring a spirit of giving. I thought about the gift of language and how through communication, we understand each other more and draw closer to each other.

And as the new year is approaching, I strongly encourage those of you at home who know more than one language, to strive and find out what works for you in teaching those languages.

This does not work for every household, but between my husband and I, I speak English to our children and he speaks Vietnamese. I predominantly am the one teaching sign language along with those spoken languages, and my husband tries to use the signs he knows to bridge the two languages together.

I realize that with giving the gift of language, my daughter of 20 months, is choosing which communication method works best for her as she is bridging the three languages together in her own way.

For instance, when she was not able to vocally produce the word “dirty,” she simply said the Vietnamese word for dirty which sounds like “yuh.” Around the age of one, as I would say "dirty" and sign, she would say "yuh" and sign dirty. She understood that all three languages meant the same thing.

At other times, when she was not able to vocally produce a word, she would sign that word. She signed “milk” for a very long time, and then all of the sudden around 16 months, I noticed she was not signing “milk” any more. It was because she was saying “milk.”

And some times my daughter chooses her own language... body language. For instance, my daughter doesn’t say the word “frog” in Vietnamese or English, nor does she use the sign, but she does insist on bouncing her whole body up and down while saying “ribbit, ribbit” each time she sees a frog. She’s communicating and giving me a gift of laughter.

The power of communication is in her hands... in many different ways.

Happy Holidays! Written by Shawna Tran: www.mybabydetails.com

Just Sign It

As your little one is maturing and finding new adventures and discoveries of life (such as the discovery of “candy” this holiday season^_^), it not only brings the opportunity to teach new words but to introduce these words with signs at the same time.

*A cold late afternoon brought my daughter and I to our back yard where she kept saying “dirty” as she pointed to the leaves. Last year when there were leaves on the ground, she was only 6 months old, so this time, she was well of age to understand “tree” and “leaves” as I pointed to the both and signed each word. Then upon coming inside she saw big brother with candy in his hand. SO, I took the same opprotunity to sign cany since I was going to give her one.

I realized within a twenty minute time frame, I was already teaching her three new signs. As little eyes mature and observations run wild, enjoy the learning opportunity for not only your child but for yourself. Learning a new language can be fun and exciting for both of you.

Here are three tips in making signing fun:

1) Obtain a small notebook or use your computer to jot down three to five words a week that you’d like to introduce or teach the sign to your child

*as you strive to find ways to teach these signs, don't forget to jot down the unforeseen signs that you were able to teach that week; tree, leaf, and candy

2) Make a goal when introducing a new sign to sign and say it at least three times

*"there's the leaves?" "yes, those are leaves... are they dirty?" "hold the leaf."

3) Keep a log of what signs you have introduced to your child... realize how many words you have already introduced and test yourself to see if you can remember all the signs to those words

*if you forget the sign or don't know it yet such as when your child is pointing to a leaf and asking what it is, don't be afraid to look up the sign and teach her the sign at a different time

*you could keep a separate log of the words you did not know but want to eventually learn

Please share your own tips with us! We’d love to hear and see^_^!

As some of you may be fluent in ASL and others still learning,

here is a list of five online ASL dictionary sites:

ASL Browser

Signing Savvy

ASL Pro

Lifeprint

Handspeak

Written by Shawna Tran: www.mybabydetails.com