Supporting Baby's Development

The first year of a baby’s life is full of development, learning and growing; in fact your baby’s brain will triple in size by the end of the first year!

Sensory sign, wriggle and rhyme is a fun and inspiring program designed by an experienced foundation stage/infant Teacher, Early years specialist, qualified baby massage instructor and baby sign language teacher, (and importantly a Mum too)!!

Our curriculums are carefully designed, planned and implemented to ensure we support your baby in each and every way and that everyone is happy. As your baby develops into a cruiser, crawler and toddler, their development continues at a rapid pace. This is why we have age appropriate programs that specifically support your baby’s development.

Importantly sensory sign wriggle and rhyme has been created to be a wonderful experience for parent and child to share and experience together; a place to make memories, friends and have great fun.

At the centre of sensory sign is the importance of encouraging and developing great communication skills. As such each class is named to reflect baby’s communication stage;

• Babbling bugs
• Chatter bugs
• Natter bugs

With the two newborn classes being called Snuggle bugs and Babylove.

But we are not just about developing positive communication; we aim to develop the whole child. Below there is a brief description of ways in which we will support development through our fun packed classes.

Communication

Babies are naturally social beings who are born with an instinct to communicate with those around them. A newborn baby is born without any language, yet by the age of three months (on average) a baby can already identify different tones of voice and is beginning to make gurgling and humming sounds in an attempt to bond and communicate. It is also no accident that as adults we speak to babies in high pitched, sing song voices. The term for this is ‘parentese ‘ and research has shown that babies respond more positively to this than normal speaking voices and that it speeds up baby’s ability to differentiate between words, speaking patterns and different styles of vocalisation.

There are many ways babies communicate with us and us with them, all of the following are vital;

Facial expression

Body language

Eye contact

allowing your baby to join in with social times

Talking to your baby

We can further enhance their communication development through singing nursery rhymes, songs, chanting poems, using toys for role play, sharing books and using infant sign language for hearing babies.

During our classes we teach parents and babies infant sign language. Infant sign language, often called baby sign language is a wonderful tool that will enhance your baby’s ability to communicate. Joseph Garcia was on of the first to recognise the benefits of baby sign language. He was working with the deaf community in the 1970’s when he became aware that babies in deaf families were communicating with family members using sign language, some of these babies were only nine months old!! The more he researched, the more babies he discovered signing. This is because babies have receptive language skills from as young as six months, but are unable to verbalise their wants and needs. With baby sign language however this barrier is removed and babies can begin to tell you what they need, avoiding the dreaded communication tantrums.

Much more research has now been done and many more benefits of infant/baby sign language have been discovered.

Babies who Sign …1

Are Less Frustrated

Speak Earlier (Contrary to what many think)

Have Higher IQ’s (10-12 points higher)

Develop Larger Vocabularies

- At age 2, signers have about 50 more spoken words than non-signers

- At age 3, signers speak and understand at a 4 year old level

Demonstrate a Greater Interest in Books

Have Better Imaginations

Enhanced Self-Esteem

Experience a Closer Bond with their Parents and Siblings

Parents who Sign with their Babies…

Give their babies a head start on language development

Experience decreased frustration

Enjoy an earlier interactive experience with their baby

Look forward to the “Not-So-Terrible” Two’s

Hear less crying in the house

Have more fun with their babies

At Sensory sign Wriggle and Rhyme our baby signs are mainly based on British Sign Language signs with some Makaton and American Sign language signs used where appropriate. Our aim is to encourage your baby to talk, we use sign language as a bridge to allow them to communicate but we modify the signs so that little hands can easily form them!

1* From a comparison study by Susan Goodwyn, PhD and Linda Acredolo, PhD of the University of California at Davis. Funded by the National Institute of Health and Human Development, the study compared signers and non-signers at age 2, 3 and age 8.

Other supporting research can be found at www.kindersigns.com

Copyright©2002 by KinderSigns

Activities to Promote Verbal Language Development

As we mentioned throughout our course, signing with your baby is an interim step, a way to bridge the gap between comprehension and actual speech production. You should not lose sight of the fact that while signing with your baby is an incredible experience, your ultimate goal is speech and language development

Incorporate these activities in your daily routine with your baby. Keep it fun and as spontaneous as possible. Vary the activities to avoid boredom.

Remember: Even if your baby isn’t old enough to understand some of these activities, keep at it! This is how your baby learns to speak!

1) Speak to your baby in “parentese, ” the high pitch manner of talking that adults tend to use naturally when speaking to babies. Studies show that babies are attracted to it. (Parentese does not mean baby talk, however!)

2) Encourage your baby to make vowel-like and consonant-vowel sounds such as "ma," "da," and "ba" by making a game of it and repeating what your baby says.

3) Maintain eye contact with your baby and respond when he attempts to speak. Imitate his vocalizations and then see if he’ll imitate some of yours.

4) Imitate your baby's laughter and facial expressions.

5) Teach your baby to imitate your actions, including clapping your hands, throwing kisses, and playing finger games such as pat-a-cake, peek-a-boo, and the itsy-bitsy-spider.

6) Have conversations with your baby. Talk as you bathe, feed, and dress him. (Sign when appropriate.) Talk about what you are doing, where you are going, what you will do when you arrive, and who and what you will see.

7) Identify colors.

8) Count items.

9) Introduce animal sounds and signs. Associate sounds with a specific meaning: For example, "The doggie says woof-woof."

10) Acknowledge any attempt to communicate.

11) Expand on single words your baby uses: " Mama is here. Mama loves you. Where is baby? Here is baby."

12) Read to your baby. It’s never too early. Choose books that are sturdy and have large colorful pictures that are not too detailed. Read the same book over and over.

13) Ask questions when reading books – even though you have to supply the answers. (“Which one is Goldilocks?”)

14) As your baby gets older, ask more sophisticated questions - even though you have to supply the answers. (“How do you think poor Goldilocks felt? I think she was sad, don’t you?”)

15) Speak to your child in full sentences.

16) Talk and read to your child often. It doesn't matter that he doesn't yet understand the meaning of the words. Your child is deciphering the components of speech and language. So explain how you're making dinner, why you're doing the laundry and what you see as you drive down the street.

(Copyright©2002 by KinderSigns)