Benefits

Babies

Express needs easily
Reduce frustration
Spend less time crying
Bond with parents
Improve language development
- Verbal language: Signing can clarify, for example, whether ‘baba’ means: bottle, bubble, balloon, bath or baby
- Communicating concepts, such as pain, needing help, hungry
Enhance self esteem
Reinforce memory
Develop creative skills
Are stimulated intellectually
Learn the most important lifeline skill: communication!

Toddlers and Young Children

Less “terrible twos”
Don’t bite out of frustration
Larger vocabularies
- Age 2 - 50 more spoken words
- Age 3 - age 4 level
Improve IQ scores
Better imagination
Greater interest in books
Better spellers
Express emotion more productively
Learn manners at early age
More interactive with peers
Culturally sensitive
Communicate outside native language group
Facilitated 2nd language learning
Learning a second language makes additional language learning easier
Raises communication awareness and abilities
Sign language is easier to learn than the spoken word
It's fun for children, parents and educators!
Enhances literacy
Enhances confidence and self-esteem
Enhances fine motor coordination
Enhances language acquisition
2-sided brain activity that increases brain functioning
Visual right brain usage
Cognitive second language left brain usage
Creates additional connections or synapses in the brain
For older children, Sign is increasingly recognized as a foreign language for high school and college. It is the third-fastest growing language in the United States!
Students in pre-kindergarten classes who received sign language instruction scored significantly higher on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and benefits were maintained in kindergarten

Parents

Educators and Caregivers