Benefits Of Baby Sign Language
It seems like good sense to try to get into sign language with your baby. After all, there are reasons why babies howl out at all times of day and night. The obstacle of getting your baby to sign for it's needs is worthwhile. Once the basics have been learned by you and baby then more complex gestures can be integrated in to your daily signing. Helen said of eight month old Hannah "Hannah has just started signs for eat and drink and I hope to add more things as she grows." Naturally babies primary requirements are learned first."The idea is to get babies communicating in a two-way process so they can tell there mum things." Signing is a natural way to communicate for babies. To harness babies understanding through signing is best from around six months. This is the age when babies recognize their own name, begin vocalization plus respond to human voices by turning head and eyes. So why not capitalize on their natural learning curve and save a lot of angst for you and baby?!
From birth you begin introducing baby to your "language" and of course baby will do the same using crying. At first you will be getting to know various pitches of crying and learning to disguise between "hungry" pitch and "cold fingers". Crying is baby's natural method of communicating, it precedes sign language and is the initial building block of communication. Of course learning the basic cries is a process of elimination, when all else is checked and well then you will find the "problem". However if you are in a busy place or a new environment for baby then it quite normal for tears and screaming to commence for no apparent reason. This is baby's self defense mechanism coming into action. If baby is receiving too many new stimuli that are not understood then crying is used to block those stimuli. Crying is a reflex which acts to help in all situations.
Babies are able to use more subtle forms of communication too. As a parent your voice will be recognized by your baby and will be responded to. Early on babies pick up on the tone of your voice so they will differentiate between warmth and loving tones and angry or upset. The ability to understand the difference in voice tone is the exciting beginning to communicating. As babies listen to the warmth of your voice over the course of their first month, you may well be rewarded by seeing a smile! What more encouragement do you need to get baby into sign language at around six months?!
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If you would like to find out more about this powerful language check out the colorful links below!
