Baby Sign Language Research

The results of baby sign language research conducted in studies over the past 25 years reveal multiple benefits of using sign language with hearing children. On this page you will find information and links to some of these research findings.

Dr. Joseph Garcia, author and founder of the SIGN with your BABY® program, began doing thesis research on the effects of using ASL with hearing children of hearing parents while attending Alaska Pacific University in the late 1980s. The results of his studies showed "that babies who are exposed to signs regularly and consistently at six to seven months of age can begin expressive communication by their eighth or ninth month." More information about Dr. Garcia along with summaries of supporting research by others can be found on the Research Page of the Sign2Me website. baby sign language research

One of the most well-known and cited studies comes from Dr. Linda Acredolo and Dr. Susan Goodwyn, authors and co-founders of the Baby Signs Program. Funded by the National Institutes of Health, results of this longitudinal study showed that the verbal skills of signing babies at 24-months of age were akin to those at aged 27- to 28-month-olds. Furthermore, signing babies at 36-months old were on average speaking more on the level of 47-month-olds. These signing babies also spoke in longer sentences than their non-signing counterparts. The children who signed as babies were tested again at age 8 and it was found that they also "scored an average of 12 points higher in IQ on the WISC-III than their non-signing peers." You can read more about the study mentioned here in greater detail along with the many others done by Drs. Acredolo and Goodwyn by following the link provided above. baby sign language research

Dr. Michelle Anthony and Dr. Reyna Lindert, Signing Smart program founders and the authors of the book Signing Smart with Babies and Toddlers: A Parent's Strategy and Activity Guide, conducted a national study centered around the benefits of the Signing Smart methods as they relate to early communication and spoken language development. The data collected from the study spanned approximately nine months. Participants were families throughout the country who had babies ranging in age from 6 to 19 months. The more than 200 families that were involved used the Signing Smart programming for a minimum of eight weeks.The results indicate that the Signing Smart children have "enriched language and communication skills" and "that ASL signs, used in combination with Signing Smart strategies, facilitate both overall communicative abilities as well as spoken language skills in hearing infants and toddlers." Follow the above link to read further details of this study as well as additional research conducted by Drs. Anthony and Lindert. baby sign language research

In the article, Using Sign to Facilitate Oral Language: Building a Case with Parents Shari Robertson, Ph.D., CCC-SLP of Indiana University of Pennsylvania, discusses the research literature in the use of sign language to develop spoken language. Robertson notes that although many speech-language pathologists working in intervention recognize the reasons for using sign language to aid in the development of oral language, many parents are leery of it as an intervention tool because they fear it will suppress, rather than assist, their child's speech development. Robertson recognizes that a firm grasp of the relevant research is essential to helping parents understand how signing is beneficial and explains the benefits from several developmental perspectives. She says that each perspective examined in her article "has the potential to provide a strong case for including sign in the intervention protocols of young children with limited oral language skills. Taken together, however, the evidence is compelling."

Marilyn Edmunds and Debra Krupinski of Taft Regionalized Deaf and Hard of Hearing Program in Southern California wrote the article, Using Sign Language and Fingerspelling to Facilitate Early Literacy to describe how using sign language and fingerspelling can be a "hands on" tool to early literacy. They explain that "the use of sign language and fingerspelling is one of the many strategies that can be used to engage the young reader in developing early literacy skills. It is successful with learners of all types and levels... [and] puts reading 'in the hands' of children."

While working on a requirement for her masters degree from Drury College in Springfield, Heather Davidson wrote the paper, Sign Language: Enhancing Language Development in Infants and Toddlers to explain how sign language can promote language development in infants. She discusses the various research in the field and states that the "findings of almost all of the studies is that using both spoken English and sign language with an infant can greatly increase the rate and efficiency of language development." baby sign language research

Infants Use Sign Language to Communicate At Ohio State School is an article written by Jeff Grabmeier (Ohio State University) examining the research of Kimberlee Whaley's Pilot Study at Ohio State University. This is one of the more popular studies and you will find it cited in may of the articles listed on this page.

The article, Sign, Baby, Sign!, written by Kristin Snoddon, talks about the Research done by Dr. Marilyn Daniels, Professor of Speech Communication at Penn State University, author of the book, Dancing with Words: Signing for Hearing Children's Literacy and prominent researcher in the field of sign language and non-verbal communication. "Dr. Daniels' research," says Snoddon, "is most significant because it shows that using sign language from infancy through sixth grade results in improved literacy. The children [in her studies] demonstrate better recognition of letters and sounds, better spelling, and larger English-language vocabularies than children who were not taught sign language."

Located on the Signing Time website is an excellent article on baby sign language research. The document is a summary of the benefits of signing with hearing children and contains synopses of a number of notable research papers, including some of the ones listed on this page. The above link is a downloadable PDF document. At 17 pages it is a bit long, however, it is definitely worth checking out if you are looking for an easy to read abstract on the subject.

baby sign language research