BABY TALK By gesturing and using sign language, some infants and young children are learning how

to communicate before they learn to speak, researchers say Healthy Living: Your Tuesday guide to medicine and health care: [Home Edition] falseFawcett, AnnePress the Escape key to close

. The Atlanta Constitution [Atlanta, Ga] 03 July 2001: C.1. Turn on hit highlighting for speaking browsersHide highlighting Abstract (summary)Translate AbstractUndo TranslationTranslateUndo Translation Press the Escape key to close FromArabicChinese (Simplified)Chinese (Traditional)EnglishFrenchGermanItalianJapaneseKoreanPolishPortugueseRussianSpanishTurkishToArabi cChinese (Simplified)Chinese (Traditional)FrenchGermanItalianJapaneseKoreanPolishPortugueseRussianSpanishTurkishcpp

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Cancel Not true, says Sarah Preston, co-founder of Alpharetta-based Little Signers, which teaches Pabian's class. Research has shown that babies who learn to communicate with sign language are quicker to speak than their peers, Preston said. Signing creates a more verbal environment, because babies initiate conversations about subjects that interest them, and their parents more consciously repeat words, she said. In addition, earlier exposure to successful communication drives babies to want to speak.

Photo Left: [Lily Pabian] of Tucker signs the word "cheese" with her son Joseph, 4 months. / MARLENE KARAS / Staff Photo Intense concentration and gesturing help Suzanne Stauble have a conversational exchange with son Luca, 2. / MARLENE KARAS / Staff Graphic FOR MORE INFORMATION > To find out about Little Signers' infant sign language classes (six sessions for $135) being taught throughout metro Atlanta, go to www.littlesigners.com. > To read about [Joseph Garcia]'s research and order a Sign With Your Baby learning kit ($49.95), including a video, a book and a quick reference guide, go to www.sign2me.com. > To read about [Linda Acredolo] and [Susan Goodwyn]'s research and order their book, "Baby Signs: How to Talk With Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk" ($12.95, NTC/Contemporary Publishing Co.), go to www.focusites.com/babysigns/index.html. > Parents of children up to age 5 who would like to participate in [Laura Namy]'s research can contact the Emory Child Research Group at 404727-7432. Photo Everywhere a sign: Luca Stauble, 2, watches his mother, Suzanne Stauble (left), as Lily Pabian, Debbie Lesser and Sarah Preston also practice gesturing to communicate. / MARLENE KARAS / Staff

Not true, says Sarah Preston, co-founder of Alpharetta-based Little Signers, which teaches Pabian's class. Research has shown that babies who learn to communicate with sign language are quicker to speak than their peers, Preston said. Signing creates a more verbal environment, because babies initiate conversations about subjects that interest them, and their parents more consciously repeat words, she said. In addition, earlier exposure to successful communication drives babies to want to speak.

Photo Left: [Lily Pabian] of Tucker signs the word "cheese" with her son Joseph, 4 months. / MARLENE KARAS / Staff Photo Intense concentration and gesturing help Suzanne Stauble have a conversational exchange with son Luca, 2. / MARLENE KARAS / Staff Graphic FOR MORE INFORMATION > To find out about Little Signers' infant sign language classes (six sessions for $135) being taught throughout metro Atlanta, go to www.littlesigners.com. > To read about [Joseph Garcia]'s research and order a Sign With Your Baby learning kit ($49.95), including a video, a book and a quick reference guide, go to www.sign2me.com. > To read about [Linda Acredolo] and [Susan Goodwyn]'s research and order their book, "Baby Signs: How to Talk With Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk" ($12.95, NTC/Contemporary Publishing Co.), go to www.focusites.com/babysigns/index.html. > Parents of children up to age 5 who would like to participate in [Laura Namy]'s research can contact the Emory Child Research Group at 404727-7432. Photo Everywhere a sign: Luca Stauble, 2, watches his mother, Suzanne Stauble (left), as Lily Pabian, Debbie Lesser and Sarah Preston also practice gesturing to communicate. / MARLENE KARAS / Staff

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CancelTurn on search term navigationTurn on search term navigationJump to first hitJoseph Pabian is only 4 months old, but he already knows the word "milk" in sign language.

When he's hungry, he opens his mouth and squeezes his fist to resemble the motion for milking a cow, mimicking the sign his mother uses every time he nurses.

Although he can hear Lily Pabian speak, signing is another way for them to communicate. "When I lift my hands, he's focused on them," she said.

Pabian, of Tucker, is among an increasing number of parents across Atlanta and the nation who are communicating with pre-verbal, hearing infants using sign language. And what they and researchers have learned --- that babies have the intellectual ability to understand and use language months before they speak --- has challenged some common views of early child development, says Joseph Garcia, a longtime researcher on the subject.

"Maybe the muscles in the mouth haven't developed until 20 months, but babies have the cognitive ability to understand communication through shared gestures much earlier," said Garcia, who started his research in the 1970s, when he noticed that deaf infants were using sign language to communicate on a more sophisticated level than hearing infants of the same age.

Hearing babies speak their first word, on the average, when they're 13 months old and speak two- or three-word sentences by the time they're 20 months old. In contrast, some babies can start signing words such as "more" and "milk" at 8 months and can build vocabularies of dozens of signs within months.

All babies are different, so others might not begin signing until their first birthday. Young babies such as Joseph might have learned to associate the milk sign with nursing, but he may not realize he's asking for milk, said Laura Namy, a professor of psychology at Emory University.

Namy's research showing that young children learn signs as readily as spoken words suggests that humans are not necessarily hard-wired to communicate through speech.

"It's as if they're starting out not really knowing the right modality to communicate," she said. "As they figure out language over time, they learn primarily words, and gesture to supplement them."

Although early communication can help children develop confidence and problem-solving skills, Garcia said, some parents might choose not to use signs because they don't want their hearing children to be perceived as deaf. Other parents could fear delaying their children's speaking skills.

Pabian, who started taking infant sign language classes as an activity to share with Joseph, said other mothers she knows weren't especially interested in the concept.

"People are a little hesitant," she said. "The first thing my mom said was, 'He's not going to learn to talk.' "

Not true, says Sarah Preston, co-founder of Alpharetta-based Little Signers, which teaches Pabian's class. Research has shown that babies who learn to communicate with sign language are quicker to speak than their peers, Preston said. Signing creates a more verbal environment, because babies initiate conversations about subjects that interest them, and their parents more consciously repeat words, she said. In addition, earlier exposure to successful communication drives babies to want to speak.

"Once (babies) figure out that 'I can do this and they understand me,' they'll figure out ways to communicate," Preston said. "This opens the door to communication."

And there is some evidence that signing can have long-term positive effects on children's intelligence. One study found that 19 8-year-olds who learned signing as babies had an average IQ score of 114, while a sample of 24 children who never learned signs averaged 102. Researchers Linda Acredolo of the University of California at Davis and Susan Goodwyn of California State University took into account family income, education and other factors that influence IQ scores.

Garcia says the increased connection between signing parents and children creates these long-term IQ effects.

"Parents tend to not fully engage in their children until there's two-way communication," he said.

But Acredolo insists that parents shouldn't look at signing as a vehicle to increase their children's intelligence.

"We've been painted as a 'better baby' institute," she said. "That's not what our research is for. The most important reason to do baby signing is to enrich the parent-child relationship."

"It's wonderful to find another way to communicate with your child," said Dr. Michael Levine, a pediatrician with Northside Pediatrics in Atlanta. "Any way that parents can do that is great."

A closer relationship is what prompted Belinda Carroll of Lawrenceville to sign with daughter Savannah, 15 months.

"I bonded with her much better," Carroll said. "I don't get frustrated, because she's not frustrated. I get comments all the time about, 'Gosh, does she ever cry?' " And more parents seem to be catching on. Acredolo is co-author of "Baby Signs: How to Talk With Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk," which has sold more than 200,000 copies, and three message boards on the subject have popped up on Yahoo.com.

"In the last year and a half, I've seen more inquiry from parents about the process," said Sherri Van Brunt, lead teacher with infant programs at Quality Times Child Development Center in Alpharetta.

But such programs are not for everyone. "It's not for the busy parent who just has time to make sure the baby is fed and put to bed," Preston said.

Little Signers teaches Garcia's American Sign Language system, but researcher Acredolo encourages parents and children to make up their own signs. Either method is fine, Namy said. Made-up signs are simpler, but ASL provides an opportunity to communicate with the deaf community later.

"What really matters is the interaction with the parents," Namy said. "If they're excited and using it in a frequent and consistent way, the kids are going to pick up on it."

Illustration Photo Left: Lily Pabian of Tucker signs the word "cheese" with her son Joseph, 4 months. / MARLENE KARAS / Staff Photo Intense concentration and gesturing help Suzanne Stauble have a conversational exchange with son Luca, 2. / MARLENE KARAS / Staff Graphic FOR MORE INFORMATION > To find out about Little Signers' infant sign language classes (six sessions for $135) being taught throughout metro Atlanta, go to www.littlesigners.com. > To read about Joseph Garcia's research and order a Sign With Your Baby learning kit ($49.95), including a video, a book and a quick reference guide, go to www.sign2me.com. > To read about Linda Acredolo and Susan Goodwyn's research and order their book, "Baby Signs: How to Talk With Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk" ($12.95, NTC/Contemporary Publishing Co.), go to www.focusites.com/babysigns/index.html. > Parents of children up to age 5 who would like to participate in Laura Namy's research can contact the Emory Child Research Group at 404-727-7432.

Photo Everywhere a sign: Luca Stauble, 2, watches his mother, Suzanne Stauble (left), as Lily Pabian, Debbie Lesser and Sarah Preston also practice gesturing to communicate. / MARLENE KARAS / Staff

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Basic language comprehension and production in >100,000 young children from sixteen developing nations falseBORNSTEIN, MARC HPress the Escape key to close

; HENDRICKS, CHARLENE. Journal of Child Language39. 4 (Sep 2012): 899-918. Turn on hit highlighting for speaking browsersHide highlightingShow duplicate items from other databases Abstract (summary)Translate AbstractUndo TranslationTranslateUndo Translation Press the Escape key to close FromArabicChinese (Simplified)Chinese (Traditional)EnglishFrenchGermanItalianJapaneseKoreanPolishPortugueseRussianSpanishTurkishToArabi cChinese (Simplified)Chinese (Traditional)FrenchGermanItalianJapaneseKoreanPolishPortugueseRussianSpanishTurkishcpp

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Cancel ABSTRACT

Using the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, language comprehension and production were compared in a sample of 101,250 children aged 2 ; 00 to 9 ; 11 and a focus subsample of 38,845 children aged 2 ; 00 to 4 ; 11 from sixteen under-researched developing nations. In the whole sample, comprehension slightly exceeded production; correlations between comprehension and production by country were positive and significant, but varied in size, and the average correlation was positive, significant, and small to medium. Mean comprehension and production varied with child age, reaching an asymptote at 5 ; 00, and correlations between comprehension and production by age were positive, significant, and similar at each age. In the focus subsample, comprehension exceeded production; correlations between comprehension and production by country were positive and significant, but varied in size, and the average correlation was positive, significant, and medium in size. Children in countries with lower

standards of living were less likely to demonstrate basic language comprehension or production. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Head nodding and head shaking gestures in childrens early communication Maria Fusaro Harvard University, USA Paul L Harris Harvard University, USA Barbara A Pan Harvard University, USA maria_fusaro@mail.harvard.edu Abstract Childrens spontaneous head nodding and head shaking gestures are examined in the context of mother-child play. Observations at 14, 20 and 32 months show that frequency of head gestures increases with age, with a pronounced increase in nodding between 20 and 32 months. Over time, children increasingly use head gestures in combination with speech, though isolated head nods continue to predominate at 32 months. Pragmatic analysis of childrens head gestures reveals that they serve a small set of communicative functions during early childhood. Childrens use of a head gesture for communication at 14 months was a significant predictor of pragmatic flexibility at 32 months, even when controlling for 14-month language production and maternal language input. The significance of head gestures in childrens emerging communication is discussed.

Journal of Child LanguageJournal of Child Language / FirstView Article, pp 1-13 Copyright Cambridge University Press 2012 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0305000912000256 (About DOI), Published online: 06 August 2012 New Content Alerts Journal Widget About Widget Rss Atom Table of Contents - FirstView Article Author Index View PDF(138KB) View HTML(142KB) Request Permissions Previous Abstract Next Abstract Brief Research ReportsLearning non-adjacent regularities at age 0 ; 71 Article author query gervain j [PubMed] [Google Scholar] werker jf [PubMed] [Google Scholar] JUDIT GERVAINa1 c1 and JANET F. WERKERa2

a1 CNRS and Universit Paris Descartes, Sorbonne Paris Cit, Paris, France a2 University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

Abstract

One important mechanism suggested to underlie the acquisition of grammar is rule learning. Indeed, infants aged 0 ; 7 are able to learn rules based on simple identity relations (adjacent repetitions, ABB: wo fe fe and non-adjacent repetitions, ABA: wo fe wo, respectively; Marcus et al., 1999). One unexplored issue is whether young infants are able to process both adjacent and non-adjacent repetitions. As the previous studies always compared the two types of repetition structures directly, the ability to learn only one of them was sufficient for successful discrimination in these tasks. The present study reports two experiments, in which we test the ability of infants aged 0 ; 7 to discriminate adjacent and non-adjacent repetition structures against random controls (ABB vs. ABC and ABA vs. ABC). We

show that, contrary to some previous proposals, infants aged 0 ; 7 successfully discriminate both repetition types from random controls, but show no spontaneous preference for either of them. Journal of Child LanguageJournal of Child Language / FirstView Article, pp 1-13 Copyright Cambridge University Press 2012 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0305000912000256 (About DOI), Published online: 06 August 2012 New Content Alerts Journal Widget About Widget Rss Atom Table of Contents - FirstView Article Author Index View PDF(138KB) View HTML(142KB) Request Permissions Previous Abstract Next Abstract Brief Research ReportsLearning non-adjacent regularities at age 0 ; 71 Article author query gervain j [PubMed] [Google Scholar] werker jf [PubMed] [Google Scholar] JUDIT GERVAINa1 c1 and JANET F. WERKERa2

a1 CNRS and Universit Paris Descartes, Sorbonne Paris Cit, Paris, France a2 University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

Abstract

One important mechanism suggested to underlie the acquisition of grammar is rule learning. Indeed, infants aged 0 ; 7 are able to learn rules based on simple identity relations (adjacent repetitions, ABB: wo fe fe and non-adjacent repetitions, ABA: wo fe wo, respectively; Marcus et al., 1999). One unexplored issue is whether young infants are able to process both adjacent and non-adjacent repetitions. As the previous studies always compared the two types of repetition structures directly, the ability to learn only one of them was sufficient for successful discrimination in these tasks. The present study reports two experiments, in which we test the ability of infants aged 0 ; 7 to discriminate adjacent and non-adjacent repetition structures against random controls (ABB vs. ABC and ABA vs. ABC). We show that, contrary to some previous proposals, infants aged 0 ; 7 successfully discriminate both repetition types from random controls, but show no spontaneous preference for either of them.