Sign with your Baby!

By Leah Delli Colli

Whether its new parents, caregivers or educators, we all are itching to know what’s going on in infant’s minds. Now more than ever it’s easy to get a snapshot into the meaning behind those laughs, cries or babbles. Sign with your baby by Dr. Joseph Garcia provides viewers with information, motivation, tips, tricks and everything in between to communicating with your infant before they can speak. Through teaching sign language to children, they are able to communicate their needs and wants before the muscles used for speech can catch up to their always-learning minds. This ability to communicate with adults eases caregiver anxiety about knowing why the child is crying, while offering immediate gratification and rewards in mutual understanding.

The instructional DVD allows viewers to know when’s best to start signing, what signs to start with, when to introduce new signs. It also followed families and their journeys and experiences of signing with their young children and the successes they’ve experienced. The DVD left me feeling motivated and confident in introducing sign language to infants. The package also comes with a book which further investigates the countless benefits signing with infants brings to families and educators. The book gives deeper insight into:

·        Understanding the infant’s perspective

·        Answers common questions and concerns

·        Being aware of various types of gazes and how to effectively incorporate sign

·       Vocabulary guide of 100+ signs

As the package states, it is never too late to start signing; sign language can facilitate language at any age. Imagine what a great feeling it would be to see your child crying, and be able to immediately give them a bandaid and a hug because your child was able to sign “hurt” over his/her knee. Sign with your baby makes this idea possible and easy! With patience, repetition and love your child could be asking for ``more juice`` before he/she can even say mom!