April 13, 2005

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Palo Alto Online

All the right signs

by Molly Tanenbaum

Tricia Jennings remembers the moment when she realized that teaching her 20-month-old baby Olivia sign language paid off.

"She vomited twice before bed and I thought she might have a stomach flu. But she was signing 'hurt' and pointing to her ear through the sobbing and the slobber. I thought it was strange that she would vomit because her ear hurt, but I took her to the doctor the next morning because she signed it. The doctor looked at her ears and said, 'She's right, she has an ear infection,'" Jennings said.

"If it were not for the signing, I might have dismissed the vomiting as a 24-hour stomach flu. Even through the tears and terror of vomiting she was able to communicate to me what was wrong."

What began in the early '80s as child development research has become a mainstream parenting practice. Now, parents curious about the trend can choose from classes, instructional videos, and books such as Joseph Garcia's "Sign With Your Baby," and Linda Acredolo and Susan Goodwyn's "Baby Signs." Both influential books came out in the late '90s and continue to be the primary models for baby sign language today.

Many parents use sign language to peek inside their pre-verbal children's minds, to avoid temper tantrums and to begin teaching early communication skills. The practice of signing can be both a fun bonding activity and a useful tool for many families, according to parents and children's health professionals.

"Most parents who come to my classes talk about avoiding the frustration of the terrible twos," said instructor Mika Gustavson, who offers baby sign language classes at Palo Alto's Blossom Birth Services.

Gustavson, who taught her own baby son, Seth, to sign, is still reaping the benefits from his enhanced language skills. She has noticed that even now, at age 5, Seth is more likely to use signs when he experiences strong emotions.

"When he gets into a really frustrated or negative mood, he'll sign with me and let me know what's going on and answer my questions when he won't talk to me. He can tell me where he's hurt so I can fix it even though he can't pull himself together enough to talk," she said.

Jennifer Feller, one of Gustavson's former students at Blossom, believes signing made her life as a parent much easier. Feller and her husband attended Gustavson's class when their baby, Grace, was 7 months old.

"I think we have avoided a lot of tantrums and frustration because of it," Feller said.

Gustavson teaches both six-session courses and one-time Sunday workshops for busier parents on how to communicate with children who are too young to talk. Parents may bring 3-month-olds to the classes, although Gustavson noted that babies will not begin to sign back until they are 9 months to a year old.

Some gung-ho parents amass a vocabulary of more than a hundred signs to teach their babies, such as Maria Abilock and her husband with their son, Coby. By the time Coby began switching to speech at 18 months, he could use about 150 signs. Abilock noted her son's voracious appetite for learning new signs long before he could speak.

"He seemed to like signs for things. When he'd point to something and ask what it is, he'd keep pointing to it and pointing to it until we gave him a sign," she said.

Other parents have kept it simple with limited, yet practical vocabularies.

In fact, just two signs, "more" and "all done," were all Libby Hlavka and her husband needed to communicate with their 11-month-old daughter.

"We were fascinated that she was able to apply these signs to lots of other contexts; she would sign 'all done' when she didn't want to stay in the car seat or 'more' when she wanted to keep swinging. We didn't end up teaching her any other signs because those two seemed to cover everything she really wanted to communicate. She also used them long after she'd started talking," Hlavka said.

Some signs Abilock used were ASL signs, while others she or her husband made up on their own, following Acredolo and Goodwyn's "Baby Signs" method.

Creating new signs was an enjoyable activity for Caryn and David Coleman who invented the sign for "cottage cheese" as the sign for "cheese" with a roof on top of it. Other parents appreciate the ASL accuracy that Gustavson teaches.

Maria Morgan, a speech pathologist at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, vouched for the benefits of signing to pre-verbal children, regardless of the method used.

"Sign and early gestural systems are an early support for children rather than teaching them another language," Morgan said.

Morgan, who uses sign language both in her work with children who have speech delays and at home with her baby daughter, views signing as an extension of the kinds of symbolic movements adults tend to make when communicating with very young children.

"I found that I just wanted to gesture a lot with her because that's just the way I am with little children and then I started using signs, like I would say 'Are you all done?' and I'd make a sign for 'all done,'" Morgan said.

Abilock noticed how naturally signing came to certain members of her family once she began signing with Coby. When her parents came over to visit, her father consistently scratched his chin when he greeted Coby, and this became the sign for "grandpa" in the Abilock household.

"That was one of my son's really early signs. [My father] wasn't on the baby sign bandwagon with us. It was just something that he did. It wasn't the grandpa sign. He just made it up," Abilock said.

Much like many other parents, the Abilocks dropped sign language as soon as Coby's speech developed. But Gustavson encourages keeping up the signs with verbal children.

"Giving it up when your child starts to speak, you lose out on some fabulous tools as a parent," she added.

For example, Gustavson can avoid embarrassment in public by using signs with Seth.

"I can very discreetly ask him if he needs to go to the bathroom," she said.

Many parents are simply fascinated what sign language allows them to discover about their babies.

"I was very surprised to find out how sophisticated his mind was so young. I think it would have been very lonely and frustrating for him and us if we had not 'found' sign language," said Corrie Reynolds, who began signing with her son, Max, when he was 8 months old.

Gustavson's next Sunday workshop will take place at Blossom Birth Services on Sunday, May 15 from 10 a.m. to noon. Those interested in more information or in registering for a course may visit www.blossombirth.com or call (650) 964-7380.

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