Sign Language to the Baby Helps Him Express Himself

Before you can expect your infant utters meaningful words, he will naturally have grasped what they mean by means of the actions he associates with them. In other words, for babies, actions speak louder than words. Unless they can see in their mind something, they cannot associate words with it.
Speaking with signs is a universal means of communication
If you have ever watched movies where people are faced with the task of relaying their ideas to people who speak a different tongue, you will probably note that all these characters have one thing in common; they try to reinforce what they are saying with hand movement.
At first the infant is a foreigner in our house
In his infancy and early childhood, the language you are accustomed to speak is foreign to your child. It is only by constantly associating the sounds you utter with your movements (baby sign language) that the baby gradually gets the meaning of your words.
Baby sign language is everyone’s first language
Before they can even speak their first words, infants know enough to raise their hands up to mom if they want for her to carry them. Moving the head from left to right and back is readily associated with something that is negative. It can mean that something bad was done or that the person does not want to do something.
There are hundreds of actions that people in all countries of the world are able to recognize as symbolizing one common idea. It is these gestures that should be used in baby sign language to help infants understand the meaning of words faster. This will lead to their developing their speech much earlier.
The comprehension of language is hastened by baby sign language
The fact that babies use sign language should not be taken as a hindrance to their capacity for developing the ability to use spoken language. Experiments show that babies who use sign language can express themselves as adequately as babies one year older than they are. Other studies also indicate that the knowledge of sign language often comes hand in hand with a higher IQ
The types of sign language
There are three popular sign sets that can be used for sign language. Besides the set of symbols that you yourself might use with your baby, there are two other more formal ones. These are the American and British systems respectively.