I’m theoretically on board with baby sign as a concept but no one has ever been able to actionably explain to me how you are supposed to sign at a baby: my experience with babies is that they require your arms for other tasks on a basically constant basis and are seldom naturalistically at an angle where they could watch a sign.
Good point and interesting question. I guess when they’re slightly older there are more opportunities to sign at them, and before that maybe other people around the baby need to sign too (including when they’re talking to you). This raises an interesting question of how much of getting talked to vs hearing others talk to each other accounts for language adoption in babies.
“Baby sign” is just a dozen or so concepts like “more”, “help”, “food”, “cold” etc. The main benefit is that the baby can learn to control thier hands before they learn to control thier vocal chords.
Good point and interesting question. I guess when they’re slightly older there are more opportunities to sign at them, and before that maybe other people around the baby need to sign too (including when they’re talking to you). This raises an interesting question of how much of getting talked to vs hearing others talk to each other accounts for language adoption in babies.
“Baby sign” is just a dozen or so concepts like “more”, “help”, “food”, “cold” etc. The main benefit is that the baby can learn to control thier hands before they learn to control thier vocal chords.