Babies can learn sign language in their first year - google it
 

Babies learn sign language before they have the coordination to speak. If parents help them learn the results are impressive. I just heard about this, makes sense. I guess it is common knowlege with "baby people".

Children also can learn several spoken languages before they are about seven years old. This is common in other countries. Here in the US it is another situation.

My daughter did. She's now 19 months. Its simple hand gestures, they have a whole bunch of books on it. Its pretty neat :)

My son signed at 10 months old and is 18 months now. It helped us communicate earlier than we would have otherwise. He started saying some words in Spanish in the past 2 months also with the help of the "Muzzy" DVD's. The best thing we did as parents was to watch 2 videos, "The happiest Baby on the Block" and "The Happiest Toddler on the Block" by Dr. Harvey Karp. They helped with solutions to screaming infants and toddler tantrums that work like an on/off switch.

We taught our kid sign language before his first year. Right around 10 months he could sign for more (in the context of food) and cereal. :) We also managed to teach him thank you, although one wouldn't realize that these days. ;)

What is impressive about a baby being able to sign? I am more impressed with my 11 year old nephew's ability to graph his father's stock portfolio performance using the newspaper each week.

I guess the fact that we are the greatest nation on earth is due to the fact that most of our babies hablan solamente ingles.:rolleyes: I have friends that live both in Europe and Asia and have advanced graduate degrees and don't live nearly as well as I do.

I also seem to learn better by actually travelling to other countries (Labor Day weekend+ for this year) than I do from google. But that is just me.

Your friends in Europe can't be French then. They're on paid vacation half the time:D.

A baby signing is not a sign of genius. It is something that all babies can be taught before they have the ability to communicate through speech. If a parent teaches their baby to sign, they can understand each other earlier and have less frustration.

Learning multiple languages at an early age also helps in other areas and I've recently read that it helps overall brain development including increased grey matter.

I do agree that first hand experience is better than learning from google, but you have to start somewhere. Also experiencing other cultures through travel is priceless.

Studies done at leading universities have proved that children who are multi lingual have better academic aptitude than those who learn a single language, no wonder Asian kids do so well in US schools and colleges with consistency. As per latest reports, Indian executives are now highest paid in Asia, higher than Japan in some respects and only second to US.

My kids are all doing it with my grandkids.

My oldest daughter the pediatrician taught them to do it.

Interesting and useful.

But I always know when the grandkids are full before the parents catch on.....

when they start throwing the food on the floor instead of eating it!;)

Tom W

I don't know any kids who don't take an alternate language course in school in the US, do you? What does your research show about how well US kids do in Asian schools? Are your Indians paid as well in Asia as our American execs are paid here?

That is about how I feel about it, Tom. Its fine and dandy, but nothing to end up bashing the US over through some condescending cirular bull****.


Speaking of the US, I'm off to the Federal Building for the day. Adieu.

I am not bashing US, don't jump the gun here, just an observation, some executives earn as good as US here in India, India has the second largest number of millionaires and billionaires after US as per Forbes so can't be doing that bad, we have people of US origin working here as high paid executives, also lots of US students are coming here now to study management and IT based courses. As for US students performance, recent Olympiads are better indicators than any but since you ask, even US and US born Indian students who come from US school system are demoted one grade to compensate for their standards. I remember from personal experience, I had a distant relative whose daughter was class valedictorian and top ranked student in NYC Stuyvesant High, one of the prestigious schools, when they moved back to India, she was demoted one class and she went through severe mental trauma, so much so that she had to be sent back to NYC, back to her old school.

OK, I feel a little better now:D

I will add that I do have a couple of (US expats) friends that live in Bangkok and run a buisness for Anderson Consulting who live like Mafia Kings while the general population seems to still be third world. My beloved Costa Rica has a 96% (or better) literacy rate and no armed forces, yet you still can tip a bartender $10 in the right town and make his month and kids run around barefooted because they don't have shoes, ect.........................

Many people in this country who graduate college have language skill performance on about the 10th grade level. We just keep lowering the bar.

I know people who taught "survival classes" for the YWCA. They taught adults to find job listings in the classified ads, fill out job applications, balance a checkbook, etc. Many of the students were "first generation literate". They grew up in families with no literate members and never learned to value reading skills.

People who use the same words but to represent different meanings cannot learn from each other. The value of learning different languages is not controversial in any way.

I am impressed that your nephew has not figured out how to print graphs of market information from the internet. Maybe it is a family thing and explains your lack of understanding of the significance of a baby learning sign language at an age when they don't even recognize themselves in a mirror. Babies don't recognize themselves in a mirror until they are nearly two years old, four for some. The idea that they can recognize others and recognize symbolic communication is quite impressive.

How many children do you have?