Introduction
Sign language in USA is the third most widely used language, next to Spanish and English. However, it has been an issue of long debate by both parents and educators whether early exposure to sign language would hinder the language acquisition process of the child or would accelerate the learning process. A lot of studies have been made over the years concerning the merits and demerits of sign language and in recent times it has been figured out that sign language taught to children during the developing stages, indeed, helps children in learning a language faster. A variety of programs have been developed to help parents and teachers learn to make better communication with children who are as young as 6 months old. Numerous articles, magazines and stories have featured information related to the programs and important of teaching toddlers and infants sign language. In fact, the benefits involved in learning sign language far outweighs the disadvantages, if any, for everyone including children who are hard of hearing, deaf, normal with no hearing impairment, intellectually disabled and so on. Since children start trying to communicate at a very early age even before they complete one year, usually at nine or ten months when they realize that they can make gestures or vocalization and they expect a response from their caregivers, it is important to teach them sign language before they are able to articulate words so that they can express their feelings effortlessly (Malloy 2003). Further growing up, sign language would help them communicate with both verbal and non-verbal people easily. This paper would discuss upon the importance of sign language, its history, benefits, and myths associated with it while touching upon how the skill of language is developed in children and how easy learning a sign language is.
History of Sign Language
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, the cofounder of American School for the Deaf (ASD), first initiated the effort of teaching sign language to the normal hearing siblings of his deaf students because of two reasons. First of all, the dead child would be able to communicate with his family and siblings and secondly, the hearing children would be able to improve their proficiency in language (Barnes 2010). According to Gallaudet, if language is presented to the mind through various senses in varied forms then the knowledge acquired will be perfect and more permanently retained. One issue of 'American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb' published in 1853 explained the benefit of teaching sign language to hearing children and more than a century later the book 'Sign Language Structure' regarded American Sign Language a complete language with morphological, phonological and syntactical structures (Barnes 2010).
The Importance of Sign Language
The skill of learning language is innate in human beings and hence human brain is genetically hard wired to learn language. However, infants don't learn a language just right after birth. It takes time for children to have their motor coordination developed and acquire the required vocabularies to articulate their feelings in words (British Council 2011). Till they are able to do that, baby sign language is helpful to give an outlet to their feelings. Infants and toddlers often get frustrated when they are unable to communicate their needs and begin to throw tantrums to gain attention of parents. Since the development of hand-eye coordination takes place faster than oral skills, infants can easily learn simple signs for words and phrases commonly used in a language such as 'drink', 'eat', 'hug', 'cookie', 'hungry' and even 'thank you' and 'please' before they are able to make clear speech. Besides, teaching sign language to infants enables them to learn vocabularies faster and develop advanced cognitive skills. Tara Kehoe, a speech pathologist, states that "Babies that communicated with sign language before they could speak actually learned to talk sooner and scored higher on intelligence tests when compared to their non-signing peers" (Youngwith 2011).
Myths with Baby Sign Language
There are many myths associated with baby sign language. First of all, many people believe that baby sign language would hinder the speech learning process of children, but it is not absolutely true because several studies show that teaching sign language to infants rather accelerates the process of learning oral communication skills. In fact, using both signs and spoken words to communicate with children has resulted in faster acquisition of communication skill (Lau 2011).
Furthermore, there are many people who believe that teaching sign language to infants is a fad but it is not true. The history of baby sign language is a century old practice which has been studied and applied in many contexts successfully. Another myth is that baby sign language is not approved by educational institutions but studies show that more and more child development centers, private caregivers and Montessori schools are embracing sign language in their curriculum (Lau 2011). Another myth is the belief that teaching baby sign language is a time-consuming affair, but it is not true. Rather if baby sign language is taught consistently in a contextual manner, it takes little time and effort for a baby to learn the language within a fortnight of introduction. Besides as children begin their learning process on a clean slate, they tend to grasp hold of a language faster than adults. Therefore, learning a sign language might be time-taking for adults but not for children.
Language Development
In order to know the benefit of teaching sign language to infants, it is important to know how the skill of language develops in young children. Infants learn receptive language faster than expressive language. Before infants learn to acquire vocabulary and articulate words, they begin to recognize the sound of a language and therefore, they react when they hear someone talking or get soothed by gentle words, but they cannot utter words and can make only gurgling or cooing sounds because the process of acquiring coordination of fine motor and the required vocabulary is a slow process. It takes about one year for a normal developing child to recognize some meaningful words including his own name and make attempts to respond to that in sounds that sound like words. Children are able to understand simple questions and follow simple directions by the time they are 15 months old. By this time, they may articulate few words which might not be very clear as the articulations skills are only at its developing stage. However, by the time they reach kindergarten, most of the children acquire a vocabulary of about 8,000 words and the basic grammatical forms of a language (Malloy 2003).
However, before children are able to grasp a control on their articulation skills to make oral communication, they rely on signs and gestures to communicate with families and friends. The proponents of teaching sign language to infants believe that just like oral language, sign language helps one express thought in a symbolical manner. Therefore, if children are taught to communicate through sign language at first, then slowly as they develop the skill of articulating words they learn to express themselves in a much better way.
Benefits of Sign Language
Several studies including the one made by Acredolo and Goodwyn in 2000 reveal that sign language stimulates the brain development making it easier for infants to make subsequent efforts in communicating with people. Acredolo and Goodwyn believe that the neurological growth gets delayed by many months without a sign language (Barnes 2010). There are other studies which show that a child whose parents used both spoken words and signs to communicate with him developed language faster than children who were left to learn language through a normal process.
Furthermore, sign language helps caregivers respond to the needs of infants in a more effective way. Since small children as young as 6 months old usually communicate by making a cooing sound or crying primarily to express their needs, it becomes difficult for parents or caregivers to understand what exactly the children want at times. For instance, if an infant begins to cry after having a meal, most of the parents try to put the child to sleep assuming that the baby is crying because it wants to sleep. But such contextual cues that parents and caregivers heavily rely on for understanding an infant's needs might not be effective all the time and the child may continue crying persistently, throwing parents and caregivers into a daze as what to do (Thompson et al 2007). In such occasions, knowing a sign language helps both caregivers and infants enormously as the needs of a child can be communicated in a clearer manner through signs.
There are few studies which show that sign language improves the IQ levels of children and increases their proficiency in subjects like Statistics, Mathematics and Arithmetic. However, more studies should be made on the subject before establishing a co-relation between sign language and the growth of intelligence. But there are some definite benefits of sign language, one of which is that sign language helps infants connect with people and make their needs known. According to a special education teacher, if one wants to know how it feels like being a toddler then one must go to country where he does not know the language and try to get along. Even getting something to eat and finding a restaurant could lead to an agonizing frustrating experience (Barnes 2010). Same way toddlers feel frustrated when they are unable to express their feelings verbally and they throw tantrums out of frustration. The practice of sign language helps children identify different objects and express their needs through the use of signs (Cesafsky 2009). Sign language also strengthens the bond between parents and children because as children are able to communicate effectively with their parents, they feel happy and content and knowing their parents understand what they want, they develop a higher level of trust on their parents.
Learning Sign Language is Easy
The art of sign language is designed in way appropriate for complete novice and therefore, people without any former knowledge of sign language can learn about 850 words at once. The developed of sign language is based on a simple philosophy of presenting thoughts in a symbolical manner and designed in a fashion that any child would learn it like his first language. Besides, while teaching sign language through a sign to express a word or a series of signs to express a sentence, English words are uttered simultaneously with a perfect body language to reinforce an emotion or feeling (Cesafsky 2009).
As mentioned earlier that American Sign Language (ASL) is the third most common language spoken after English and Spanish in USA, it is also a most natural language involving both visual and manual representations with a fine combination of sounds, movement of hands, arms and body, hand shapes, facial expression and palm orientations (Cesafsky 2009). Majority of the materials available on baby sign language are ASL based. Besides ASL, other sign languages can also be used but due to the availability of plenty of books and materials on ASL, ASL is the most common form of baby sign language.
Conclusion
The third most widely used language in USA after English and Spanish is sign language. For a long time it has been a matter of debate whether teaching sign language to infants helps them acquire learning skills faster or hinder the process of speech acquisition. Over the years many studies and research made on the subject proved that sign language indeed helps children learn vocabularies faster and talk sooner than children who are not taught to communicate through signs. The history of sign language is a century old when Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet first initiated the effort of teaching sign language to the normal hearing siblings of his deaf students to help them communicate better with their family. Since hand-eye coordination develops faster in children than oral speech, children learn to communicate their needs effectively when taught sign language. Though there are several myths associated with sign language the most prominent of which is that it delays the language learning process in children but several studies and research show that when children are taught sign language in the developing stage, their brain development gets stimulated and they are able to acquire a proficiency in cognitive skills and learn to talk faster than their peers. Since learning of sign language is an easy process, it makes more sense for parents and educators to expose their infants and toddlers to sign language so that they can connect with people more effectively.
Work Cited
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