How to communicate with your child before she can talk.

It's not surprising that babies can learn how to sign. Both their;understanding of language;and their;motor skills;develop much faster than their;ability to speak. And they love to mimic: Most babies, for example, discover how to wave and point long before they can say, "bye bye" or "look at that!"

The idea of taking this one step further and teaching babies a vocabulary of signs was inspired by child development expert Joseph Garcia.

He discovered how easily hearing babies of deaf parents learned sign language and also noticed that these babies appeared less demanding than babies who didn't know sign language because they could express their thoughts and needs more easily.

So why shouldn't hearing parents of hearing babies enjoy the benefits of signing too? After all, Garcia figured, if a baby can sign for what she wants instead of screaming, everyone in the family will be happier.

While baby signing doesn't promise to cut out tears or tantrums, babies as young as 6 months old have been taught to "sign" successfully, and a number of organizations offer baby signing classes in the United States and in other countries.

Benefit:

•Less frustration

Teaching your baby to sign isn't hard, but it does take patience.
And even just a few easy signs – like "drink" (thumb to mouth, tilting up) – can make all the difference, as one mom, Emma Finlay-Smith, discovered: "The first sign we tried, when Isabella was about 11 months old, was the sign for 'drink.' At first I thought she wasn't paying any attention.

"But about a week or so after we started, she was sitting playing with her toys when she looked up and signed to me. I thought she was waving hello, then my husband spotted that she was signing 'drink.' It was like when she took her first step – she was delighted and so were we!

"As she learned more words, her frustration levels dropped dramatically."

• A closer bond

Mom Sharon Mason says signing gives her an extra special bond with her son Morgan, 16 months: "Morgan has a vocabulary of about 30 words, and he's starting to string signs together. He comes and tells me if our dog is asleep (first fingers and forefingers of both hands pointing downward) or if he can hear an airplane (swooping his hand).

"It's wonderful knowing what's going on inside his head. I also love being able to talk to him even when he's on the other side of the room. At playgroup the other day I noticed he was looking a bit panicky – I couldn't reach him easily so I signed 'I love you' (hugging myself, looking at him), instead."

• Improve Communication

Parents may worry that teaching their baby to sign will interfere with normal;speech development, but some studies suggest the opposite is true: Signing may actually improve language and vocabulary. At the very least, signing helps your baby communicate months before she's stringing together words.

Signing, as Garcia points out, is about enhancing, not replacing language. It has to be used alongside normal speech so your baby can make the link between the gesture and the word. And because you need to make sure your baby is looking at you, she's concentrating hard on what you're saying as well as on what you're doing.

When your baby can sign back, communication becomes a two-way interaction. If, for example, she tells you she can hear a plane, you can respond, "You heard an airplane? Yes, I can see it. Look, it's over there. Isn't it loud?"

In this way, you probably spend more time talking to your child, which is one of the best ways of helping speech develop.

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