Folium: Baby Sign Language – Deaf Babbling …
Folium: Baby Sign Language – Deaf Babbling ...
Folium: Baby Sign Language – Deaf Babbling …
The ability to listen, comprehend, process, and then formulate and articulate language as a form of personal expression is an incredible thing. There are countless studies about the process of learning languages in our infancy, and how we grow in our ability to communicate.
I don’t read much on baby-babble, but this one caught my eye. (My baby is due in July, and there’s going to be so many informal “language studies” on that poor thing…) Babies that are taught sign language as a form of communication, either hearing or deaf, tend to also babble in sign.
This leads to other studies that support the idea that the process of babbling is actually a form of practice. An internal-external dialogue to help get those patterns of sounds down correctly.
“In a study involving six hearing infants (three with hearing parents who used only spoken English and three with Deaf parents who used only American Sign Language), researchers tried to figure out if sign babble had any linguistic qualities. The three infants with Deaf parents actually had hand babble similar in rhythm to their parents’ signing whereas the hearing infants’ hand babble had no resemblance to ASL rhythm. This sign babble, researchers say, is the equivalent to vocal baby babble.”
I really wish that this article was cited correctly, since we have no title or supporting institution, but I’m sure some intrepid internet users can find it out. Check out the article, it’s a good read!
