Baby Signs: How To Talk with Your Baby before Your Baby Can Talk.

Contemporary Books, Two Prudential Plaza, Suite 1200, Chicago, IL 60601-6790 ($12.95).

N

160

Parents

Attachment Behavior; Body Language; Child Language; Communication Skills; Infants; Intellectual Development; Language Acquisition; Nonverbal Communication; Parent Child Relationship; Preschool Education; Self Esteem; Toddlers; Verbal Development

978-0-8092-3430-1

Based on research in infant sign language, this book teaches parents methods of communicating with their infants through the use of simple bodily movements that signify objects, events, and needs. Noting that communication between parent and child can flourish between 9 months and 30 months, when a baby's desire to communicate outstrips the ability to say words, this guide explains how increasing the number of gestures in a baby's repertoire can expand and improve parent-child communication. Increasing the number of gestures a baby uses also stimulates the process of learning to talk, encourages intellectual development, enhances self-esteem, and strengthens the parent-infant bond. The guide provides step-by-step instructions with photographs and diagrams, and includes sections on: baby signs as part of the language puzzle; signs to start with; charting progress; developing new signs; differences among babies; real-life baby sign stories; signing and rhyming; from signs to speech; and parents' questions. (TJQ)

1997

ED402011