Although babies are able to begin grasping certain concepts at an early age they are not able to verbalize these concepts with spoken words. An infant or toddler may realize when they are hungry but are unable to say, "I'm hungry, can you feed me?" , simply because they have not developed speech yet. With basic sign language skills they can demonstrate to their parents what they need or want in a particular moment.

Baby sign uses basic American Sign Language and is able to be used by babies before they are able to vocally form the words they need to communicate to their parents. This can eliminate guesswork and frustration for both parent and child as they are better able to understand each other through the use of sign.

Research has not only shown that babies are quick to grasp basic signs for things like, "eat, wet, cold, hot, bathroom", but they are also quicker to begin talking at an earlier age if they are taught baby sign. Whereas it was originally believed that by teaching the baby sign language speech development would be delayed, the opposite has proven true.

One of the simplest books I have found to date is Teach Your Baby to Sign: An Illustrated Guide to Simple Sign Language for Babies. Offering a comprehensive list of words infants and young children would need for communication purposes on a daily basis, this book gives clear illustrations of how to do each sign.

While the inital thought may be that this will be a complicated task of having to learn sign language in addition to being involved in the busyness of motherhood, I personally, have already found this to be easier than expected. During the first week of incorporating this into my baby's and my life, I thought about the different things I was doing, such as feeding her or changing her dirty diaper and looked up the signs for that particular activity. I then began implementing them into my speaking with her as I began and accomplshed each of those tasks. I had to look the signs up a few times before I remembered them but within three weeks I had remembered all of them and have been using them ever since. Although my daughter is still too young to use the signs herself I am excited about the day that she will begin using them to tell me what she needs from me! I'm also excited about using this early year base of basic ASL as a foundation for her having a second language later on in life.