Does Teaching your Baby American Sign Language cause Speech Delay?
Dr. Cason on May 23rd 2008
This is a popular question and the answer is No!
I wrote this when Jake was 19 months old! Boy how time flies. Now he just turned two and speaks 4-5 word sentences such as “Mama I like your shirt.” and “No Mama! No like my pjs!” He has a lot of opinions!
That’s my baby signing water when he was 19 months old. His version of water but water nonetheless!
Today he said “La La”.
Some people fear that their baby will have speech delay if they use sign language but the opposite was found to be true. According to a study that was published out of Chicago in 2005 titled “Gesture Paves the Way for Language Development” “Gesture both precedes and is tightly related to language development.”
I was lucky to learn American Sign Language, the beautiful visual language of the American Deaf population, in college. With my first two girls I signed mostly for fun since even at a young age had a large amount of spoken words. But with my son, I started teaching him when the screaming got too much! We figured he had something to say and we’d help him out a little.
I started signing to him when he was about 6 months of age with “all done” and “more”. These for obvious reasons I knew would come in handy when he wanted to get down from his high chair or he wanted more food. But when I really got serious at 15 months old, his vocabulary blossomed! He took months to learn some signs such as water but minutes for “apple” and seconds for “candy”. I think he was pretty motivated!
My son is speaking more and more each week. I know as he learns to speak more, signing will be something he does for fun and not out of a communication necessity. But for now it is part of every conversation we have, and I’m so grateful to be able to understand how he feels and what he wants.
