Hello and welcome to my website. I’m so excited that you are taking an interest in the Baby Signs® Program and considering teaching your little one to communicate through signs. Signing with your baby will be one of the most wonderful and memorable experiences you’ll ever have, so get ready for an amazing journey. I know this to be true after teaching both of my daughters to sign and communicate using the Baby Signs® program. And I’ve experienced the same as an Independent Certified Instructor who has been teaching workshops and classes since March of 2006.
After a successful career with Shell Canada, I became a full-time mother to my first daughter Kendalyn. I started to teach her to sign at 6 months and she did her first sign at 8 months. By 15 months she was using over 50 signs to communicate. She began not only to express her needs but also told us stories about what she saw and experienced. I felt so lucky to see the world through her eyes and what a world it was! She would sign to me about things that I would never have noticed, like a cat in a window or a bird in a tree. It was rather refreshing and forced me to slow down and “smell the roses” as they say.
My second daughter came along exactly 2 years later and I knew then that I wanted to teach her to sign and to become an instructor at the same time. It has become my passion and I talk about baby signing everywhere I go. My daughter Kaitlyn has been a very challenging baby, and still is at 18 months. I’m scared to think about what life would be like without the Baby Signs® Program. Kaitlyn now knows over 60 signs and her older sister knows over 200.
My husband, Steve, also signs with our daughters and is so proud when his girls sign with him and when they learn new ones. It’s been heartwarming to see him bond with his girls through signs. I strongly believe that it’s helped strengthen our family and we’ve grown in a very special way.
There are other programs out there but I encourage you to look closely at what the Baby Signs® program has to offer. The quality of the curriculum and products is incomparable. Also, consider that this program has been designed by the experts and pioneers of baby sign language, Linda Acredolo and Susan Goodwyn. The most important thing to remember during your baby signing journey, and as a parent, is that everybody needs constant support and motivation to succeed. This is my mission and I look forward to helping you and your little one have a successful and memorable signing experience.
Layla Cochrane
Layla@BabySignswithLayla.com
(250) 213-6071
Offering Classes, Workshops and Educator Training in Victoria, BC and surrounding areas.
ASLPro
A resource for American Sign Language (ASL) learning tools.
Baby Signs® Parent's Yahoo Group
This group is designed as a place where parents who are using the Baby Signs® Program can get help and support both from Certified Baby Signs® Instructors and other parents!
Baby Signs® Frequently Asked Questions
Answers from the official Baby Signs® Canada Web Site
Blue Zoo Baby Boutique
For baby, for mommy, for kids.
Countryside Preschool
Countryside Preschool
Kids In Victoria.com
Your Kids, your Community, your Resource.
Little Blue Man Media
Helping you create memories. We are a Canadian business that can turn your photographs, videos, words and songs into a beautiful DVD Montage for any life event or experience.
Mothering Touch
The Place for New and Expectant Parents
Namaste Inspired Athletics
Your source for fitness, health and life-
On and off the mat.
Personal Trainers Victoria
Personal trainers come to your home.
JustPlayDates.ca
A Canadian wide parenting village where members can meet with their little ones.
Sprouts
Sprouts: The coolest store for kids.
CBS News Video
Here's a recent CBS News Video story on baby signing and it features the twins who signed their
way to stardom in the movie Meet the Fockers.
Hand signals help babies on their way to speaking
This is a great article from the Exeter News-Letter that gives some
background about the Baby Signs® Program and shares some stories
about babies who have been in the program.
ABC News Story
This story appeared on Good Morning America
Getting Smart from the Start
MSN Video CBS Nightly News Segment
Baby Signs: Improving Communication
From an article in the Daily Democrat.
Baby talk with hands
6/16/2006
By Judy Reimche, Peninsula News Review
saanichnews.com
A Central Saanich mother is teaching other parents how to communicate with their babies before they can speak
The baby is crying - again. You've offered food, milk, toys, a change of diaper - you've made faces and danced around like a mad person, trying to change baby's mood. Nothing has helped. Baby is crying harder than ever.
What's wrong? What is baby thinking (you already know what you're thinking)?
Or baby is flapping his/her arms, looking at you beseechingly - what does he want? You can tell the baby knows, but just can't express it to you. If only baby could talk- but maybe he can. You just haven't learned the signs he needs to express himself.
"The light went on, for me, when my first daughter was six months old," said Layla Cochrane, a Central Saanich mom of two little girls.
She was at a mom and baby group when she learned about a program that could help her baby "talk," before she could actually use verbal speech. Cochrane went to the Baby Signs website (www.babysigns.com) to learn more about the program, and she was hooked.
Through the website and subsequent courses she began using sign language to talk to her first daughter, Kendalyn. At about 10 months of age, Kendalyn started signing back. By 14 months, she was actively doing 50 signs.
"Our frustration levels went way down," Cochrane said. "She was happier because I could understand her needs better. So I was happier, too. And I learned so much more about her, at an earlier age, than I would have otherwise."
Kendalyn didn't begin to talk until she was about two, but when she did, she already had a good vocabulary.
Cochrane's second daughter, Kaitlyn, is now 10 months old. Sitting on a blanket on the living room floor, she let her mom know, with a sign, that she was hungry. She has learned three signs so far - hello, milk, and no.
Her mom, sitting cross-legged in front of the child, made the sign for "more" (bringing the fingertips of both hands together), saying the word over and over. Kaitlyn was more interested in the visitor.
"We start with some easy things, like 'eat' and 'more' - things that might appeal to a baby," Cochrane said. "If the baby isn't interested, move on. Find something that appeals to them. Maybe try 'bath time' or names of animals that the baby likes. Sometimes parents get stuck on certain signs they want the baby to learn, but if baby isn't interested at that moment, it's not going to be productive for either of you."
Kendalyn dropped the signing at about two and a half years of age, but has begun again, teaching her little sister.
"It's a great way for them to communicate with each other. Kids usually find some way to talk to each other at an early age - this gives them a skill to begin."
Does it discourage verbal speech?
"Before the program was developed studies were done. The results tell us babies who sign start to talk sooner, and have a larger vocabulary," Cochrane said.
The program was developed by Dr. Linda Acredolo, a professor emeritus at the University of California, Davis, and Dr. Susan Goodwyn, a professor of psychology at California State University, Stanislaus. It came about because Acredolo's daughter, Kate, began to spontaneously create symbolic gestures when she was about 12 months old. These were "sensible" gestures (like sniffing for "flower" and arms-up for "big"). To develop more signs, the pair made it easy for her by modeling other simple gestures for things in which she was interested and then followed her gestural and verbal development.
Was Acredolo's daughter unique or would the signs work for other babies? They decided to find out.
They began a study that brought together more than 140 families who agreed to join the research beginning when their babies were 11 months old. Families were randomly assigned to a Baby Signs or non-Baby Signs group. At the beginning of the study the groups were equivalent in sex and birth order of the children, their tendency to vocalize or verbalize words and the parents' education and income levels. During the course of the study, they were assessed, using standardized language measures, at 11, 15, 19, 24, 30 and 36 months. As well, as many children as they could locate were assessed once more at age eight, using a common measure of children's intelligence, the third edition of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children.
On average, by 24 months of age, the Baby Signs children had speech patterns and vocabulary three to four months beyond their age, and were putting together significantly longer sentences.
By 36 months, those babies were, on average, talking like they were 47 month olds - almost a full year ahead of their age mates.
The eight year olds who were located, and who had been Baby Signs babies, scored an average of 12 points higher in IQ than their non-signing peers.
Cochrane, after doing her research, believed her children could benefit from signing. When her second daughter was born, she decided to start offering the program to other parents and babies. The program, although 20 years old, has only been in Canada for two years. She is the first on Vancouver Island to offer Baby Signs.
"The response has been great," she said. "It's not hard to teach the signs; it's just hard to keep it up. Babies can learn all the signs you throw at them. Parents need to feel confident that they have the skills to do this by themselves. And they often need the support to keep them motivated - that's not easy."
The Baby Signs program has videos, DVDs, books, flash cards and other products to help parents develop and continue their own skills.
Cochrane said babies aged seven months are ready to begin learning younger than that, but they don't have the motor skills to sign, and that could be frustrating for baby and for the parents.
"If your child is trying to say things but can't - [signing] gives them that outlet.
"Some kids are talking by the time they're three. Signing can help them (enhance their verbal skills) too," Cochrane said.
That the child is face-to-face with the parent, seeing as well as hearing speech, also helps the verbal interaction.
The signs are based, about 80 per cent according to Cochrane, on the American Sign Language program. "But babies will make up their own signs," she said. Daughter Kendalyn, now three years old, came to her mom one day, crossed her arms and said, "This means I'm mad."
"It made perfect sense," said her mom, smiling at the memory. "Whatever is easy for the child, and to get the messages across, is fine. This is all about communication."
Communicating With Your Pre-verbal Child
An article that appeared in Island Child, a resource for pregnancy and parenting.
