Parents can begin communicating early with babies by teaching them American Sign Language

McClatchy Newspapers (MCT) - At 3 months old, Regan Finn started signaling to her parents when she needed a diaper change. At about 5 months, Katie Mingus could tell her parents when she needed help with something. And when she was 8 months old, Andelyn Boothby could ask clearly and politely for more milk.

Child prodigies?

Hardly.

The babies' parents attribute their children's early communications skills to the use of American Sign Language, or ASL. Neither the children nor their parents are deaf. But these Pierce County, Wash., parents say learning sign language helped boost their children's language development, both in sign and in spoken words.

"I went into it skeptical," says Jim Finn, Regan's dad. "But I've been blown away by the results."

Finn and his wife, Jody, who studied ASL in college, began signing to Regan from birth.

Every time they changed her diaper, for example, they made the sign for change. Eventually, Regan, who is now 20 months old, started making her own version of the sign.

"It probably saved us untold diaper rashes," says Finn.

Rebekah Mingus, mother of Katie, who is now 17 months, says that learning to sign with her daughter probably sidetracked many tantrums. And Michelyn Boothby, Andelyn's mom, says she was astounded at how fast her daughter, now 18 months, began stringing words together in sign language.

"It floored me," she says. "Before she was even a year old, she was putting words together."

EARLY ADVOCATE

None of the children's achievements surprises Joseph Garcia, the Bellingham, Wash., educator who helped pioneer the use of sign language with hearing babies two decades ago. His first book on the subject, "Toddler Talk," was published in 1994. He hopes to have a new book on baby signing published this year.

Garcia first learned sign language in the 1970s. Years later, while working on a master's thesis, he observed how hearing children of deaf parents could sign fluently by age 1. He began studying the phenomenon and soon became convinced that the skills could be taught to any child.

Garcia says parents taught through his methods learn to introduce the signs in a gentle, loving way by integrating the signs into daily life. "We don't force it on them," he says. "We model it. They see the motion with the (spoken) language."

Garcia says that when he first published his ideas, they were seen as "unorthodox, kind of crazy." But his ideas have been tested by others. A study published in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis in 2007 by researchers from the University of Kansas concluded that signing could replace crying and whining among babies ages 6 to 10 months.

REDUCES FRUSTRATION

Kristy Davies, a New Jersey speech-language pathologist and ASL instructor, conducted a research study last year while a graduate student at La Salle University in Philadelphia. She compared hearing children who learned ASL to their nonsigning peers.

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She followed 20 children between 6 and 8 months of age for nine months. At the end of the study period, she found that the signing children, when compared to national norms, used more words at a younger age than their peers who didn't sign. "They were talking more and with a larger vocabulary," says Davies.

Although it wasn't a formal part of her study, Davies says parents also reported that teaching their babies sign language did much to reduce their children's frustration. "The moms were so pleased that their children could tell them what they wanted," she says.

Garcia says helping young children communicate earlier in life promotes self-esteem. "When they get a response, and get feedback _ that is the propeller that flies that child's spirit forward," he says. "They become more curious, more engaged."

SIGN AND SPEAK

Judith Karman teaches baby sign language classes at Bates Technical College, using Garcia's methods and his materials, published by Mukilteo, Wash.-based publisher Northlight Communications, under the brand Sign2Me.

Karman, a former public school teacher of deaf children who has operated an in-home preschool, started teaching baby sign classes in 2002. She uses songs and games to teach ASL to both parents and babies.

Parents say that makes the classes fun for both them and their babies.

Karman says it's never too early or too late to begin with a child. But she says most parents start when their child is about 6 months old. She instructs parents who want their babies to learn ASL to make eye contact with their child, say the word and make the corresponding sign at the same time.

Rather than hinder verbal language development, says Karman, ASL enhances it by engaging the same brain mechanisms that children in bilingual homes use.

And by using sign and spoken language together, she says, children receive both auditory and visual stimulation.

"The notion that if a child signs, he won't talk, is archaic," says Garcia. "That's like saying that if you learn Norwegian, you can never learn Swahili. Sign language is a mode of communication."

"By talking as we sign," says Karman, "we are also teaching language. When the baby gets older, he will start verbalizing along with the signs."

AMERICAN SIGN STANDARDS

How can children who are too young to speak learn to sign?

Garcia says that children can use their hands long before their vocal mechanisms mature. "A child can open and shut his hands weeks after birth," says Garcia.

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And in ASL, many of the signs are iconic; the sign for "milk," for example, resembles a hand pulling on a cow's udder - or perhaps a mother's breast. It comes easily and naturally to a child whose parents make the sign and say the word milk before every feeding.

Babies will often start with their own approximation of the parents' sign, but with practice they can improve.

"She doesn't have the motor control to do all the signs perfectly," says Michelyn Boothby of her daughter Andelyn. "But she uses it even when she's upset. She signs 'please,' even if she's crying."

Rebekah Mingus says her daughter Katie has put her own stamp on signs for "more," "eat" and "nurse."

"She likes to use 'finish' when she's in her high chair," says Mingus. "She can tell me when she's finished eating."

By the time they begin talking, the babies have learned not only individual words, but also the grammar and syntax of ASL. They may combine verbal and sign languages, as Andelyn Boothby did.

"She started talking at 10 months," her mom says. "By 11 months, she would say 'pretty' and sign 'flower.'?"

Andelyn's grandmother, Jacquelyn Holmes, says she had a lot of fun learning to sign with her daughter and her granddaughter. "I love when she says 'please,'?" Holmes says. "That just melts me."

While some parents might be tempted to make up their own signs, Karman believes it's important to learn and use standard ASL. "Making up a sign, or continuing to use a baby's approximation of any sign, would be the same as teaching a baby to use baby talk instead of speaking correctly with them," says Karman.

Learning ASL has other advantages as well, Karman says. In day-care settings, caregivers may use it to speak to children. And ASL can also give young children a way to communicate with other kids, who may be hearing or deaf. "It's standardized, and can be understood," Karman says.

VERBAL DEVELOPMENT

Most children are able to learn between 20 and 50 signs before verbal speech is established.

As the children grow older, they begin to use verbal language more and sign less. "Between 12 and 18 months, vocabulary is starting to blossom," says Mingus.

But parents of signing babies say using sign language was a key to sanity as their children entered their second year of life - often a time of great frustration for pre-verbal babies who resort to screaming, hitting or biting to make their wishes known.

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"The most moving thing to me was being able to honor her," says Jim Finn of daughter Regan. "When you can respond to her, she is making a connection. It opened up her world a lot sooner."

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TIPS FOR PARENTS

_Don't make signing a task. Incorporate it into your daily life.

_Make eye contact whenever you sign with your baby.

_Say the word you're trying to teach out loud, along with the sign.

_Take advantage of teachable moments. Sign "eat" and "milk" at meal times, for example.

Sources: Judith Karman and sign2me.com

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© 2009, The News Tribune (Tacoma, Wash.).