Baby Signing is becoming very popular amongst parents as a way of developing methods of communication with their baby before speech is established.

Any parent will recognize a baby's gestures as they attempt to communicate before they have any words. This is due to muscle development, a baby's gross and fine motor skills develop faster than muscles concerned with speech and therefore it is possible to teach them to sign in the interim.

Signing can go a long way to reducing frustration and give you an insight into your child's needs. Parents report babies who sign cry less as they are able to explain what they need or what may be wrong albeit in a basic way.

The amount of time and frequency of exposure to baby sign will affect how well your child is able to sign, like with everything babies develop at different rates but with regular use a six month old baby and Mother can communicate quite efficiently. It is amazing to see how much of the world a child can notice and what they are able to do before they can tell you in words.

As a baby grows they are able to pick up more signs and can have an impressive vocabulary of signs. Ensure that you use the appropriate word alongside the sign so your child learns to associate them with spoken language.

Don't try to do too much, keep it simple at first until your baby has learnt a few signs and uses them unprompted. Keep it relaxed and enjoyable, children learn best in this way. If you pressurize them early on they will be less likely to respond.

With regular exposure to sign you will be impressed at how fast your child develops and starts to communicate with you. You can start to communicate very quickly to establish signs to represent hunger, pain, tiredness etc. They will be able to copy and request to have their needs met very effectively.

By being able to understand your child it makes the pre speech stage less of a frustrating guessing game and gives you a tool in which to provide for your child's needs readily. There are lots of baby sign classes you can attend or simply develop gestures with your baby that you regularly use. The emphasis is not to produce baby fluent in sign language but one who can communicate early. Always use the sign your child uses as a prompt to speech, " you want a drink?" in response to the action, this way you are enabling them to learn the appropriate word at the same time. Many baby signers become early talkers before their non signing peers.