APOLLO BEACH, Fla. — Infants and toddlers in the Tampa Bay area are learning to communicate thanks to a daycare center incorporating sign language into the curriculum.
Tampa Bay 28 Anchor Lauren St. Germain went to see this in action and spoke with a speech language pathologist to learn about the various benefits teaching American Sign Language to young kids can have.
At The Learning Experience Apollo Beach, some infants are learning to sign before they can talk.
“What is the first sign you teach the kids?” asked St. Germain.
“The first signs that we normally teach is like more, all done, or milk because that’s the first need that they actually want,” said Kristen Nyilas, the operations manager of several learning experience locations.
St. Germain also wanted to get a medical expert’s perspective on this, so she spoke with Amy Yacoub, who is a Pediatric Speech Language Pathologist at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital.
“Infants as young as six months can begin learning the basic signs like more, milk, and all done. At that age, they are really watching and imitating adults closely. So it’s a great window for introducing communication through signs,” said Yacoub.
She explains there are multiple benefits.
“It reduces frustration both for the child and the parents and helps build a strong foundation for language development. When children realize that gestures and words have meaning, they start to understand that communication is powerful and that’s a key milestone in early development,” said Yacoub.
“As someone who works with young kids, the infants, what is it like to be able to see them communicate with their signs as opposed to their words?” asked St. Germain.
“Not only is it adorable, it is really, really empowering because we are giving the children the tools to communicate with us and their families and their friends around them, but share what they want with the world,” said Olivia Kerper, the Curriculum Coordinator at The Learning Experience Apollo Beach.
“When we see the child actually gets it the first time they put their hands up in the highchair and go, ‘all done,’ it’s like oh!! Claps. It’s the biggest party," explained Nyilas.
Yacoub says parents can do this at home, too.
“We always pair a spoken word with a sign so the child hears it, they see it, and then they use it with their hands. That strengthens learning using multiple pathways in the brain,” said Yacoub.
“I would just want to reinforce to parents that teaching sign language at home does not delay speech, it’s really a tool to help their child communicate. It can reduce a lot of frustration because around that eight to 10 months, babies do start to understand a lot more about the world around them," said Yacoub. "They really have a lot they want to communicate, but the muscles in their mouth are not fully developed and coordinated enough to speak."
Building communication and connection before a child’s first word.
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