Although signing may not accelerate language development, it offers opportunities for parent-infant interaction and play.
AP/Justin Hayworth
Few things are as frustrating for a parent as trying to decipher their baby’s cry. What does she need? Is she hungry? Cold? Does she have a wet diaper? Is she hurt? Imagine how nice it would be if infants could communicate their needs! Is baby signing the answer?
The baby signing movement promotes early communication between infants and parents by teaching infants to communicate with symbolic gestures. The assumption behind baby signing is that the cognitive and gross motor skills needed for signing develop before the relatively fine motor control of the mouth, tongue, and breath needed to articulate speech (Goodwyn & Acredolo, 1998). The roots of baby signing lie in research conducted by Linda Acredolo and Susan Goodwyn. Their research has shown that babies readily acquire symbolic gestures when exposed to the enhanced gestural training that they refer to as baby signs (Acredolo, Goodwyn, & Abrams, 2009). They propose that the rewards of baby signing include larger and more expressive vocabulary, advanced mental development, improved parent–child relationships, and fewer tantrums and behavior problems (Acredolo & Goodwyn, 1988; Goodwyn & Acredolo, 1998). Based on their findings, Acredolo and Goodwyn created a signing program for infants with videos, classes, books, and cue cards (Acredolo et al., 2009). Parents who read about the benefits of teaching signs to their infants often embrace the practice. Numerous companies have been created to promote and sell baby signing materials. Most advertise benefits such as facilitating spoken language, reducing tantrums, and increasing IQ.
It is generally recognized that gesture and language are linked and that babies naturally make early gestures that precede their use of language (Iverson & Goldin-Meadow, 2005). Sensitive responses from caregivers tend to result in more pointing and gesturing from infants, suggesting that gestures are a form of communication (Vallotton, Decker, Kwon, Wang, & Chang, 2017). But is baby signing effective in accelerating language and cognitive development? One review of 33 websites associated with various baby signing products revealed that all promoters claimed benefits such as faster language development, and many claimed to foster cognitive and emotional development, including higher IQs, improvements in parent–child interactions, and fewer child tantrums. Yet almost none provided evidence to support these claims. Those that did referred to case studies (such as Acredolo & Goodwyn, 1985) and opinion articles rather than experiments (Nelson, White, & Grewe, 2012). A review of research studies examining the outcomes of baby signing programs found that although some of the studies suggested some benefits, nearly all contained methodological weaknesses such as a lack of control groups or no random assignment. It was concluded that evidence to support these claims was insufficient (Johnston, 2005).
More recently, a longitudinal study tested the effects of baby signing products. Infants were followed from 8 months of age until 20 months of age (Kirk, Howlett, Pine, & Fletcher, 2013). Babies were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: baby sign training, verbal training (i.e., mothers modeled words without signs), and nonintervention. At 20 months of age, the language development was similar for all babies, regardless of intervention. Encouraging gestures did not result in higher scores on language measures, providing no support for the claims of baby signing proponents.
Nevertheless, many parents report that baby signing has improved their child’s ability to communicate, cognitive ability, and overall parent–infant interactions (Doherty-Sneddon, 2008; Mueller & Sepulveda, 2014). For example, although U.K. infants enrolled in a baby signing class showed no differences in language development compared with their nonsigning peers, mothers who enrolled their infants in the baby signing class tended to use more mental terms and refer to thinking (“You want the toy, huh?”) in their infant-directed interactions (Zammit & Atkinson, 2017). Baby signing may not have research support for accelerating language development, but if it promotes frequent parent–infant interaction, does not rush or pressure infants, and is helpful in parents’ estimation, there is no reason to discourage its use.
What Do You Think?
Should we encourage parents to teach their babies how to sign? Why or why not?
Table 5.2
Thinking in Context 5.2
1 What kinds of toys and activities would you recommend to caregivers who want to entertain infants while helping them develop skills in attention, memory, or categorization?
2 Recall from Chapter 1 that an important theme of development is that it is influenced by multiple contexts. How might contextual influences, such as family, neighborhood, sociocultural context, and even cohort or generation, influence attention, memory, categorization, and/or other aspects of cognition?
3 What are some of the challenges in studying how infants think and what they know? How have researchers addressed these issues? Can you identify criticisms to information processing researchers’ methods, findings, or conclusions?
Individual Differences in Infant Intelligence
At its simplest, intelligence refers to an individual’s ability to adapt to the world. Of course, different people have different levels of intelligenc—an example of the concept of individual differences or variation from one individual to another. Intelligence tests are used to measure these differences; they include questions that measure memory, pattern recognition, verbal knowledge, quantitative abilities, and logical reasoning. Measuring intelligence in infancy is challenging because, as noted earlier, infants cannot answer questions. Instead, researchers who study infant intelligence rely on an assortment of nonverbal tasks—the same kinds of methods that are used to study cognitive development. There are two general approaches to studying intelligence in infancy. As discussed next, the testing approach emphasizes standardized tests that compare infants with age-based norms. A second approach, the information processing approach, examines specific processing skills.
Testing Approach to Intelligence
At 3 months of age, Baby Lourdes can lift and support her upper body with her arms when on her stomach. She grabs and shakes toys with her hands and enjoys playing with other people. Lourdes’s pediatrician tells her parents that her development is right on track for babies her age and that she shows typical levels of infant intelligence. Standardized tests permit the pediatrician to determine Lourdes’s development relative to other infants her age.
The most often used standardized measure of infant intelligence is the Bayley Scales of Infant Development III (BSID-III), commonly called “Bayley-III” (see Figure 5.7). This test is appropriate for infants from 1 month through 42 months of age (Bayley, 1969, 2005). The Bayley-III consists of five scales: three consisting of infant responses and two of parent responses. The Motor Scale measures gross and fine motor skills, such as grasping objects, drinking from a cup, sitting, and climbing stairs. The Cognitive Scale includes items such as attending to a stimulus or searching for a hidden toy. The Language Scale examines comprehension and production of language, such as following directions and naming objects. The Social-Emotional Scale is derived from parental reports regarding behavior such as the infant’s responsiveness and play activity. Finally, the Adaptive Behavior Scale is based on parental reports of the infant’s ability to adapt in everyday situations, including the infant’s
