COMMUNICATION
SIGN LANGUAGE
Baby Sign Language lets babies, as young as six months old, communicate their needs so they don't need to cry. Your baby will learn how to tell you:
-
When he is hungry, wants more, or is all done
-
Or that he just needs a hug
​
Studies show that learning Baby Sign Language has many developmental benefits including:
-
Speaking earlier and having a larger vocabulary
-
A +12 point IQ advantage over peers
-
Achieving better grades in school
​
CONVERSATIONAL TURNS
These are simple back-and-forth alternations between a child and an adult.
LENA technology counts that a turn has occurred when an adult speaks and a child follows, or vice versa, with no more than five seconds in between.
Any speech-like, non-cry sound counts as a turn — from an infant's coos to a toddler's words (either real or made up).
There's overwhelming evidence that conversational turns have more brain-building power than adult words alone.
MIRROR NEURONS
We know that most of the connections between neurons, the basic working units of the brain, take place between birth and aged three. Mirror neurons are a particular class of neuron that enables motor activity. They are also activated when we observe the same type of motor action performed by another person, and in this way they help us to observe and imitate behavior.
​
From birth, infants are born as social beings, looking to their caregivers for comfort and interaction. An article in Psychological Science shares that “Babies can imitate behavior two to three weeks after they’re born...In the first months and years of life, babies realize that other people are like them...Over time, babies learn that they can act with intent and variety. They experience the ability to perform an action differently from the person they are imitating. Eventually they realize internal states, such as desire; further down the line they develop empathy.”
This means that even during the earliest weeks of life, infants are learning foundational social-emotional skills from their caregivers, such as how to communicate, express needs, and share in emotions. These experiences become the foundation for children’s ongoing development of social and relationship-building skills.
​
BABBLING
Baby babbling helps with three main things – language skills, imagination, and socio-emotional development.
​
Language Skills
When babies babble they are developing their language skills. They are getting better at recognizing sounds and trying to identify the meaning behind them. They are learning the fundamentals of how language works.
​
Imagination
Babies have a habit of looking at things, thinking about what they see, and associating it with different words and meanings. Babbling is a great way to get them to start thinking in this manner. This can help them form their first words and can help with their language skills.
​
Socio-emotional Development
When it comes to the socio-emotional development of your baby, there is simply no comparison between babies that babbled as infants and those that did not. In addition to being able to hear more, they were exposed to a lot of soothing sounds as well. These sounds were essential in forming their speech and so, it is highly likely that they retained these associations as well.