Saturday, July 29, 2006

Talk to Me, Baby!

A Reuters story about the new trend of parents teaching sign language to their hearing infants:

"It is about empowering children to communicate. They can communicate with you at an early age and not be frustrated," according to a teacher at a sign-language class for babies in Los Angeles.
Maybe, although others chalk it up to "over-achieving parent syndrome." But just think: If they could teach those toddlers to scream and wail in ASL, long plane flights would be that much more pleasant.

2 Comments:

Blogger Language Lover said...

As the mother of two young children who learned to talk well at an early age, I think that baby signing is a bit overrated. Most children learn how to communicate when they need to, in whatever way is available to them. Between my girls' nonverbal gestures (pointing, shaking head, etc.) and the familiarity I gained with the different noises they made, I never felt that I was unable to read their needs and desires, even before they could talk. Personally, I think the signing movement about reducing parents' frustration than children's. Except in the case of the plane rides, of course!

10:45 PM  
Blogger Martha said...

I agree, LL!

And sunbelt, LOL re flying SBA!

1:45 PM  

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