Baby sign research
Acredolo and Goodwyn Research
Published in 2000 in an academic journal, Acredolo and Goodwyn's research was called Impact of Symbolic Gesturing on Early Language Development.
It's available online here but it's not an easy read!
More than 140 families and their 11-month-old children joined their study through the 1990's. The families were divided into two groups: 'Baby Signs' or 'non Baby Signs'. As many children as possible were followed up when they were eight years old.
The results
The results showed that at 24 months the babies in the signing group were on average talking more like 27/28 month olds, and were putting together significantly longer sentences.
At 36 months, the gap between the language ability of the 'Baby Signs' and 'non Baby Signs' seemed to be growing. On average, signing babies were talking like 47 month olds, putting them 11 months ahead of their non-signing peers.
By the age of eight, those who had been signed to in early life had an IQ on average 12 points higher than children of the same age who had never experienced sign.
From this study, Acredelo and Goodwyn concluded that signing to babies helps children to develop both their language and their cognitive skills.
The two academics have since written a much easier book Baby Signs: How to Talk with Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk which you can buy on the Internet.
