Baby Sign Essay

994 Words2 Pages

Baby signing is used to teach children who are not yet speaking to communicate through symbolic hand gestures. Many researchers believe this form of communication is beneficial to families in that it may relieve frustration for the baby (Gongora & Chammarrita, 2009). For example, a child who is taught sign language can make the sign for juice to communicate that he or she is thirsty (Gongora & Chamarrita, 2009). Also, baby signing is believed to promote a bond between the child and parent, as well as improve language development (Gongora & Chammarrita, 2009). Over the yeears, baby signing programs have gained much attention in the media. As a result, many parents have purchased these programs with aticipations of accelerating their children’s development ( Gongora & Chamarrita, 2009). Years have been dedicated to this research; however, evidence to support the beneficial claims of baby signing remains unclear. Many studies supporting the use of baby sign language had participant samples that were too small, nor were the participants randomly assigned to control groups (Kirk, Howlett, Pine, & Fletcher, 2012). Also, these children could have already been advanced learners to begin with (Kirk, Howlett, Pine, & Fletcher, 2012). Some baby signing studies were original studies and others were meta-analyses ( Johnston, Durieux-Smith, & Bloom, 2005). Johnston, Durieux-Smith and Bloom (2005), for example, conducted a review of literature regarding the effectiveness of teaching children (not able to speak yet) to use symbolic gestures. Seventeen out of 1,208 reports met their criteria. Only 8 articles were of original studies. Out of those articles, five of them were case studies. Also, four articles were longitudinal studies and one was a ... ... middle of paper ... ...ment in children (Pizer, Walters, & Meier, 2007). I suggest there be larger sample sizes and that all participants be randomly assigned to experimental groups. Not only would this help show empirical support, but results could then be generalized beyond the experiments. Longitudinal data should also be recorded in order to measure the long term effects of teaching children sign language or symbolic gestures, especially as it relates to development of language. If there more longitudinal data becomes available to analyze, then parents and educators could be better informed when making the decision use baby sign language or not. Also, there needs to be a more diverse sample of participants. Many studies only included with middle class parents. Since there is no evidence of harm to children with the use o baby sign language, I believe it is a useful communication tool.

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