Signing in Babies Does Not Boost Language Development

Many parents use baby signs in order to communicate with their babies before they are able to talk. The researchers from the University of Hertfordshire do not support this theory. They have found no evidence that supports the claim that using baby signing will accelerate baby's language development.

The details of this study were carried in the Child Development. A controlled study was done that evaluated the benefits of symbolic gesture or baby sign.

They study rejects the claim that baby signing helps babies learn to talk, increases their vocabulary as well as improving the mother child bond.

This study was led by Dr Liz Kirk, from the University of Hertfordshire's Department of Psychology. The study was conducted on forty mother baby pairs when the babies were eight months old. Every mother-baby pair was randomly allocated to either a gesture or no gesture condition, and each baby's development was systematically tracked over a twelve-month period.

Dr Liz Kirk said: "Although babies learnt the gestures and used them to communicate long before they started talking, they did not learn the associated words any quicker than the non-gesturing babies, nor did they did they show enhanced language development."

The study highlighted that mothers who gestured their babies were responsive to their babies' non-verbal clues. This made them think of their baby as an individual with a mind.