Hello!

First, I want to express my appreciation to all of you who frequent this site (Baby Signs www.babysigns.com) for your interest in our Baby Signs® Program.  Susan and I never cease to be thrilled at the reception our research has received over the years and, especially, at the growing number of parents who are discovering for themselves the magic that signing brings to daily life with their baby.

One question that I’ve seen asked occasionally has to do with the advantages of the Baby Signs® Program over some of the other programs available in the market place.  First of all, let me say that we are both pleased that the increase in signing products and programs means that more families than ever are being reached with the good news about signing.  That said, there are some attributes of our program which we are particularly proud of and which, we feel, make our classes and products stand out from the crowd.

Original Research: The Baby Signs® Program is a natural extension of our 25 years of research at the University of California (much of it supported by the National Institutes of Health in Washington, DC) documenting the benefits of encouraging hearing babies to use signs before they can talk.  For example, it is our research paper (available in its entirety at www.babysigns.com) that many signing programs cite when they talk about how signing facilitates rather than hinders learning to talk.  It was in the course of this research that we discovered the most effective strategies for teaching babies to sign, strategies that we have implemented in our products and programs.

Firm Developmental Foundation: With Ph.D. degrees in child development, and more than 45 years (combined) of research and university teaching experience in the field, we have been able to create signing programs and products that are designed to be maximally effective with children under 3.  Our Sign, Say & Play™ classes, for example, not only are designed to make it easy and fun for parents and babies to learn signs together, but also include information for parents about specific ways to support.

Intellectual and emotional development:  These lessons are drawn from our 2nd and 3rd best-selling parenting books (the first being Baby Signs), entitled Baby Minds: Brain-Building Games Your Baby Will Love and Baby Hearts: A guide to Giving Your Child an Emotional Head Start.  Our DVDs provide another example.  In contrast to many signing videos marketed for babies, ours are carefully designed to take into account the processing capacities of very young children: the pace is slow, the images simple, the signs are repeated many times, and the number of signs is limited so as not to overwhelm babies with too much information at one time.

Flexible Approach: Although the great majority of the signs we recommend have been drawn from ASL (because we recognise the value of a bridge to the deaf community), we recognise that the bottom line for any family is successful communication.  We, therefore, make sure parents know that they are free to choose whatever signs work best for them and their child.  This position contrasts sharply with the strict ASL-only philosophy that characterises several of our main competitors.  (The denigration of non-development – was conducted with no thought at all to whether the signs families were using were ASL (NZSL) signs or not.  And, in fact, a large proportion of them were not.)

A Wide Variety of Extremely High Quality Products: Susan and I are particularly proud of the resources we have created to help parents make the most of their signing experience.  We have books for parents and books for babies; we have a video dictionary for parents to help them learn signs and 5 DVDs for babies to help them learn signs; we have BeeBo™, the Baby Signs® Bear, a large “teacher-puppet” with whom babies inevitably fall in love; and we have music CDs and “Concept Cards.”  The DVDs deserve particular note because of their exceedingly high production qualities.  State-of-the-art animation showing the 5 Diaper-Doodles™, real babies doing the signs, funny monkey puppets, and child-friendly music all combine to make our DVDs not only effective in teaching signs directly to babies, but also enormously entertaining.

Dedicated, Well-Supported Network of Instructors: Ours is the biggest network of signing instructors in the world – numbering now over 700 mums, child-development professionals, and even grandmas and grandpas in North America alone!  There are many reasons the network has grown so fast: (a) the programs the instructors offer are well-organized, developmentally appropriate, and effective; (b) the products (as already stated) are high quality, effective, and affordable; and (c) the Instructors receive lots of support from the Home Office from staff whose specific job it is to make sure the Instructors are well-prepared and informed.

For all these reasons, Susan and I feel very comfortable recommending the Baby Signs® Program to you.  We have poured our hearts and souls into making it the very best it can be – and we are proud to say we think we’ve succeeded!

Happy Signing,
Linda Acredolo

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