Baby signs

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Baby signs

• Gary Morgan

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What is baby sign?

• Fun, stimulating for children, good for adult and
  child bonding
• So are many other things you can do with your
  children

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What it isnt

• A unique way to help children learn spoken
  language quicker or better
• A unique way to make children smarter, better
  behaved, write earlier or become more happier

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Baby signing is gesturing

• Why do children prefer gestures?
• Since Piaget there have been many studies that
  show children like and use gesture before they
  learn words or signs
• Gesture is a good predictor of later language
  development so gesture with your children lots

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Gesture

• Gestures are holistic and grounded in the body,
  children repeat gestures (face and body) easily
  and adults like children communicating with them
• Gesture is good for broad communication
• Words and Signs are abstract and part of a
  grammar
• Words and Signs are good for expressing specific
  meanings. Learning to use specific meanings
  relies on cognitive readiness we know you cant
  jump ahead in childrens development there are
  no real short cuts

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Baby sign research

• Not a lot of it about surprisingly
• One meta-analysis revealed NO significant effects
  of baby-signing training on language development
  across all available evidence as a whole
• Johnston, J. Durieux-Smith, A. Bloom, K.
  (2005). Teaching gestural signs to infants to
  advance child development A review of the
  evidence. First Language, 25 pp. 235 - 251.

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Be careful about the expression research shows

• Research shows if you propose to your fiancé on
  14th February you have 80 more chance that s/he
  will say yes The Observer February 2007.
• Survey carried out by Interflora

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Joseph Garcias UK websitewww.babysigners.co.uk

• Research shows baby signing increases your
  childs brain activity
• D. Bavelier, D. P. Corina and H.J. Neville
  (1988). Brain and Language a Perspective from
  Sign Language. Neuron, 21, pp. 275-278

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What does baby sign give children?

• A chance to have fun with adults and be part of a
  communicative environment (just like singing old
  MacDonald, reading stories and playing Jack and
  the Bean stalk does)
• Baby signing researcher needs control groups of
  children who are involved in equally interesting
  and fun activities based around adult and child
  language interaction
• TAKE HOME MESSAGE DONT BELIEVE THE HYPE