Hey baby, what's your sign :)

This meetup group is for parents/caregivers who would like to meet other parents who use signs with their babies.

~*Using the Baby Signs Program reduces tears, tantrums and frustration.*~
By the time babies are 9 to 10 months old, they are quite capable of knowing what it is they need or want. What they don't know is how to tell us with words-which leads directly to frustration for baby and parent alike. All this changes when a baby is able to use signs. With signs like "eat," "drink," "hot" and "cold," literally at their fingertips, babies can make their needs known quickly and quietly without becoming frustrated and resorting to tantrums and tears.

~*Using the Baby Signs Program makes learning to talk easier.*~
Some parents may worry that encouraging their child to use signs might slow down learning to talk. Actually, the opposite is true! Drs. Acredolo and Goodwyn's federally funded research showed that using the Baby Signs Program actually helps babies learn to talk. They found that 2-year-old Baby Signers had significantly larger verbal vocabularies than their non-signing peers. And by the time they were three years old, the Baby Signers language skills were more like that of 4 years old. Babies gain a lot of language knowledge when they are able to actively engage in communication with signs-knowledge that lays a good foundation for learning to talk. And, just as a child who learns to crawl is more, rather than less, motivated to learn to walk, so also a child who learns to sign is more, rather than less, motivated to learn to talk!

~*Using the Baby Signs Program stimulates intellectual development.*~
Children who had participated in Drs. Acredolo and Goodwyn's study were revisited again when they were 8 years old. Each child was assessed using the WISC-III, a typical IQ test for children. The results were very impressive. After controlling for family income, parents' education and a number of other factors know to influence IQ, children who had signed as babies had significantly higher IQs (an average of 114) than the children who had not signed (an average of 102). That's a full 12 points higher!