Baby Sign Language the benefits of sign in child care

Baby Sign Language the benefits of sign in child care
by Jackie Durnin

Over the past four years, baby sign language has emerged as a powerful communication tool for parents, families and child care workers around Australia.

Being able to understand and respond to a child's needs encourages fewer tantrums and less stress for children, and also, makes the daily job of a child care worker a much more positive experience.

For those of you not currently using baby sign in your service, the question you must be asking is: 'What is baby sign language, why should I use it and how can it be helpful to me?'

To help me answer these questions, I have asked child care workers currently using Australian Baby Hands in their service to explain what their experience of using baby sign language is and how it has impacted their lives.

Baby sign language is the practise of using simple sign language to assist parents, family or child care workers communicate with pre-verbal babies. Most child care centres will use a form of sign language or gestures when communicating with babies or NESB (Non English speaking background) children. Gestures will be used to tell them to get their hat or to ask if they want some food or a drink.

Australian Baby Hands uses the national sign language of Australia (Auslan), which allows parents and professionals to borrow from an already established set of signs. The beauty of using a standard sign system is that all carers and children are able to communicate effectively, and parents can become involved as well.

Nesha O'Neil of Midson Road Child Care Centre NSW highlighted what attracted her to using baby sign language and in particular, Australian Baby Hands.

'Many of us have experienced the frustration of working with a child who is upset and is asking for a particular thing, and we can't figure out what it is. It's only later when mum, or grandpa says 'oh he means…' that we know what it is that they wanted (eg "de de" means "dummy" to one child but "aunt Dianne" to another).

It's a similar idea when using gestures, or sign, with the children. If you are using a standard sign everyone knows what is being communicated - and you have the benefit of it being the basis of Auslan,' said Nesha.

So what are the other benefits of introducing baby sign language into your child care centre? Centres who have started using baby sign have reported the following:

A calmer less frustrated environment for both the child care workers and children. As children are able to communicate their needs and wants, there are fewer temper tantrums. Staff have reported that it's much easier to be patient with a crying child if they're signing 'please'.
As Australia is a very multi-cultural country, child care centres usually have children from numerous cultural backgrounds. As a result these children have been exposed to many different languages such as English, Mandarin, French, Russian, Spanish etc. By introducing baby sign language, there is one common language among all the children and this assists with integration among these different cultural groups.
Children are polite and are encouraged to use signs for 'please' and 'thank you' when asking for or receiving things. Lorna King of Norwest Child Care Centre NSW said: 'What's really rewarding is watching the development of manners in children at a very early age that doesn't happen with regular language development. All of our children sign 'please' and 'thank you' at meal times and when playing with others. It's much easier for staff to model signing these words, than insisting on children saying them,' she said.
Baby sign language results in children developing an extensive vocabulary and they are hungry to learn more.
Some children acquire spoken language quicker than children who had never been exposed to sign language.
Children's self-esteem and self-confidence increase as they are able to communicate their needs, wants and interests through signing.
Baby sign also stimulates brain development and studies have highlighted that signing children had a 12 point higher I.Q. than non-signing children in future I.Q. tests.
Baby sign language allows you to highlight to children what is about to happen. Nicole Wade, a child care worker at Midson Road Child Care Centre demonstrates this - at the sign for 'Nappy Change Please' one toddler jumps up and waddles towards the change room.
Baby sign language is a tool to teach social skills and conflict resolution. Signs that can help improve a child's social skills include hello, goodbye, sorry, help, stop, please and thank you. All these signs are featured in both the Australian Baby Hands book and DVD. Melinda Ellis, an Early Childhood Teacher, reports that the 'stop' sign has been very useful when teaching conflict resolution and social skills to all children.
Parents all over the country are incorporating this into their homes. By learning baby sign language, you can establish yourself as a practising baby sign language centre and use it as a promotional tool for your centre.

And finally another benefit is that it is FUN for everyone involved.

To start using baby sign language in your child care centre, here are a couple of tips to get you started: Train everyone in the centre in baby sign language - it's no use having one person signing. To do this, the Australian Baby Hands Child Care Pack is a great resource to get you started.

Announce the change to parents, and perhaps invite them in for an introductory session. The Child Care Pack has a sample newsletter that you can send out to parents explaining what baby sign language is and what it will mean for them. If you hold an introductory session, supply parents with a free copy of the baby sign language chart which is provided in your pack. Remind them that signing at home will support signing at your centre.
Follow the 'Steps to Signing Success' outlined in the Australian Baby Hands Child Care Pack.
Have plenty of displays and information on baby sign language around your centre.
Signing and singing songs is great fun and a great way to introduce baby sign language to your child care centre. Some centres exchange some of their traditional finger play songs and rhymes with signs.
Baby sign language can be introduced to children of all ages, even older children who are speaking. Research has shown that baby sign language is beneficial to children right up to the primary school years.
Baby sign language also enables older children to communicate with their younger siblings.

As you can see, there are many benefits to introducing baby sign language into the child care environment and getting started is quite easy to do.

To help you get started we would like to offer readers a 10% discount off all Australian Baby Hands product.

To access this discount, you need to quote childcare09 into the discount code in the shopping cart on our website, www.australianbabyhands.com. This discount is valid until the end of March 2009.Happy Signing!

For extensive information you can also click through to www.australianbabyhands.com.