Baby Sign Language Analysis

Baby sign is the use of sign language to facilitate a form of language in normal hearing and developing children (Mueller, Sepulveda & Rodriguez, 2014). Baby sign refers to the use of signs from American Sign Language (ASL), however adjusting the signing size, space and length to emphasize a certain or single word, such as more, please, thank you or milk (Seal, 2010). Baby sign is used to teach babies symbols that represent objects or actions in their immediate context that they can use before they are able to speak those words. This gives them the ability to communicate with their parents, making communication between babies and their parents easier. Many babies replicate these signs after being exposed to them for a while and will continue
A majority of studies yield results showing that there was not enough evidence to conclude encouraging babies to sign/gesture benefitted their language development (Kirk, Howlett, Pine, & Fletcher, 2012; Mueller et al., 2014). Along with these results, another source stated there was no evidence to say that baby sign had a negative effect on typical development, but still does not support overall enhancement of language development. Even though baby sign has a relatively long history, there is no significant empirical evidence to support its effectiveness related to language development (Fitzpatrick, Johnston, Thibert & Granpierre, 2014). It was mentioned that there was research done on hearing children born to deaf mothers in the past and as a result of being exposed to a rich nonverbal environment, these children acquired sign language as well as spoken language earlier then the norms of other children. These findings led researchers to questions if hearing children with hearing parents would benefit in the same way by being exposed to baby sign before acquiring speech. (Kirk et al.,
There is not much evidence for baby sign increasing language development but there is a variety of evidence for baby sign benefitting other aspects of the infant and parents life. A study done by Mueller and Acosta (2015), says that infants use baby sign as an aid in extracting unfamiliar words from language to help them detect what is being said, in addition with using facial cues. Mueller et al. (2014), also stated that baby sign enhanced parent-child interaction and communication, which led to a stronger bond between the child and parent, and it reducing the frustration or stress in parents. This shows that although there is no evidence to support that baby sign increases language development, there is support and evidence to show that baby sign is beneficial in other ways. There is a controversy between the idea that baby sign affects language development, but there has not been significant enough findings to confirm this fact. The studies discussed agreed with the use of baby sign training for parents and t interaction with their children, but their evidence was not supportive of baby sign improving the child’s language. Some research shows that there is improvement in the language development of a normal child but not significant enough to consider baby sign as the only factor to the improvement (Mueller et al., 2014; Kirk et al., 2012 & Fitzpatrick et