Sign with Your Baby: How to Communicate with Infants Before They Can Speak

“. . . An amazing new world of communication.” “. . . An astonishing tool for parents.” –abc News, “20/20”

Parents looking for a new way to communicate and bond with their infant and/or toddler now have one – this book teaches elementary ASL signing. Eye contact, interaction and language development all get a boost from the book, which is aimed at parents of babies age 6 months to 3 years. Plus, with a few of the simple signs in hand, the little ones can actually help mom and dad figure out what they need. (Eat? Up? More?) Parents who stick with it may also see a broader social advantage: bridging that communication barrier between deaf and hearing people of all ages. A Parents’ Choice® Recommendation! –Parents’ Choice Awards®

Parents looking for a new way to communicate and bond with their infant and/or toddler now have one – this book teaches elementary ASL signing. Eye contact, interaction and language development all get a boost from the book, which is aimed at parents of babies age 6 months to 3 years. Plus, with a few of the simple signs in hand, the little ones can actually help mom and dad figure out what they need. (Eat? Up? More?) Parents who stick with it may also see a broader social advantage: bridging that communication barrier between deaf and hearing people of all ages. A Parents’ Choice® Recommendation! –Parents’ Choice Awards®

Though no one in his family is Deaf or Hard of Hearing, Dr. Joseph Garcia has always been interested in gestural language and began studying American Sign Language (ASL) in 1975. He soon began using it extensively in his personal and professional life, and eventually became a Certified Interpreter. As he became more involved with the Deaf community, he soon noticed that hearing children of deaf parents started communicating with sign language at an earlier age than hearing children did with spoken language. Intrigued by this observation, he decided to research early childhood language acquisition and the part that sign language might be able to play in the process. He chose this topic for his graduate thesis in 1986. As his research proceeded, he uncovered a great deal of information about deaf children and their language development, but could find little on hearing children using ASL signs (i.e. hearing children of deaf parents, children with deaf siblings, etc..) He began investigating the results of using ASL signs as a method of early communication between hearing children and their hearing parents, and how signing affected the onset of expressive language in preverbal infants. What he learned was that babies who are exposed to ASL signs regularly and consistently, starting at six to seven months of age, can begin using signs effectively for meaningful two-way communication by the eighth or ninth month. They will also clearly understand the meaning of the signs quite some time before they actually initiate them on their own. During the last 30 years, Joseph was principal investigator for 109 private research grants. He has developed teaching and training materials for youth-related projects in the health care industry. He was appointed to and served two years on the Alaska Governor’s Committee on Employment of The Disabled. He has continued to be active in the Deaf community. Dr. Joseph Garcia is the author of the definitive book on signing with your baby and baby sign language using ASL signs, called, “Sign with your Baby.”