American Sign Language is a foreign language. The signs you are teaching your baby are concepts used in this foreign language. Clayton Valli is a leading researcher and linguist and defines American Sign Language. “American Sign Language is an autonomous linguistic system whose elements are visual rather than aural. It is a fully formed language….” Teaching your child American Sign Language gives them the chance to become bilingual. Many Universities accept American Sign Language as a foreign language and have courses for it.

Deborah Parrish, M.S., Signing 4 Baby Founder

It’s amazing how quickly a child can pick up on something if they are interested in it.  Using baby sign language allows parents to open the doors of communication for their child, who otherwise would be limited in expressing things they enjoy at such an early age in life.

Andrea Burton Ploehn, Signing 4 Baby

Some parents get worried if they don’t feel their child is following the “steps” of sign language by the book. One mom commented, “My 15 month old son has somehow gotten the “more” sign confused… he does it when he wants something as opposed to wanting more of something… how do I get him back on track?”

I have two children that I did baby sign language with, and I teach baby sign language classes. Her 15 month old is doing exactly what he should be. He’s simply in one of the signing stages called “experimenting”. In this stage they try to use the signs in different contexts, which is great. Plus, it doesn’t sound like he’s that confused about the sign. My kids did it all the time, when they wanted something they would also sign more… if they didn’t have something at the moment, they wanted more of whatever it was.

Andrea Burton Ploehn, co-founder signing 4 baby