My Smart Hands: Using Sign Language is An Effective Tool for Baby Communication

It’s every parent’s nightmare when they can’t figure out what their baby wants. In the middle of the night, many couples wake up to a disgruntled baby, and there are times that even after giving seemingly everything that the child could possibly need, he’s still not satisfied. How, then, could parents possibly understand what their baby wants or needs?

Alaine Antonio, a graduate student of Special Education from the University of the Philippines, is all too familiar with these parenting concerns. That’s why when she stumbled across a video of a 12-month-old baby using the American Sign Language for 20 words and 30 signs (a total vocabulary of 50 words!), she was amazed at the potential of sign language for baby communication.

Here’s the video that Alaine saw on the Internet:

The video that Alaine saw online was from Laura Berg, the founder of My Smart Hands. Berg was inspired with how sign language boosts literacy and researched further about its benefits, eventually founding My Smart Hands in 2005.