Are Babies Who Sign Really Smarter?

Are Babies Who Sign Really Smarter?

Anyone who has sat through a screaming fit at 2am, trying to work out whether their baby is hungry, in pain, too hot or just fed up, has probably wondered if there’s a better way. That frustration is exactly what baby sign language promises to solve. The idea is simple: teach your baby a handful of gestures for things like “milk”, “more” and “all done” so they can tell you what they want before they can actually say the words.

It’s a lovely idea. But the marketing around baby signing has, for years, gone a lot further than the evidence supports, with some courses and products claiming it can boost your baby’s IQ, speed up talking, or even improve their self esteem. So what does the research actually say, and is it worth teaching your baby to sign?

What baby sign language actually is

Baby sign isn’t the same as British Sign Language or American Sign Language, although some families do borrow signs from these languages. Most baby signing programmes use simple, made up gestures that are easy for a baby’s developing motor skills to copy. Opening and closing a fist means “milk”. Tapping the fingertips together means “more”. Patting the top of the head might mean “hat” or “sleepy”. The signs are meant to bridge the gap between the months when a baby understands far more than they can say out loud.

This gap is real. Most babies understand simple words and instructions well before they can physically produce them with their mouths. Hand gestures, by contrast, are something babies can manage from around 8 to 12 months, well before most first words appear. That’s the whole logic behind baby signing: give your baby an earlier way to communicate while their speech is still catching up.

The claims versus the evidence

Baby signing took off commercially in the 1990s and has grown into a genuine industry, with classes, books, apps and DVDs all competing for parents’ attention and money. Along the way, some fairly bold claims have been attached to it: accelerated speech, fewer tantrums, stronger parent child bonding, even higher IQ.

The trouble is, most of these claims don’t hold up well under scrutiny. In 2012, researcher Lauri Nelson and colleagues reviewed 33 baby sign websites and traced the source of the claims each one made. They found that more than 90 percent of the claims were based on opinion pieces and marketing copy rather than actual scientific studies. Claims about reduced tantrums, better self esteem or improved bonding had no supporting evidence at all, not even weak evidence, just assertion.

A separate review published in 2005 looked at 17 studies on infant signing carried out between 1980 and 2002. The conclusion was blunt: the existing research had significant methodological flaws, and there was no reliable evidence that baby signing had any measurable benefit for a child’s development.

Later research tried to test this more rigorously. In one randomised study published in the journal Child Development, researchers assigned parents and their babies to either baby sign training or a control group with no signing, then tracked the babies’ language development over a year, from around 8 months to 20 months old. The babies in the signing group did learn and use signs, often before they could speak. But when it came to actual language milestones, first words, vocabulary size, sentence formation, there was no meaningful difference between the two groups. The signing babies didn’t talk earlier and their language didn’t develop any faster than the babies who never learned a single sign.

A further review published in December 2014 came to the same conclusion: there is no strong evidence to support the claimed benefits of baby sign.

So is baby signing pointless?

Not necessarily, it just needs to be understood for what it is rather than what it’s sometimes sold as. Baby signing gives your baby a way to communicate specific, concrete needs, like wanting more food, feeling too hot, or wanting to be picked up, before they have the words for it. Plenty of parents find this genuinely useful day to day. It can cut down on a certain amount of guesswork, and many babies clearly enjoy the interaction and attention that comes with signing sessions.

What it doesn’t appear to do, based on the research so far, is make your baby smarter, accelerate their speech development beyond what would have happened anyway, or prevent tantrums once your toddler is old enough to have proper opinions about life. If a course or product promises any of that, take it with a large pinch of salt.

If you want to try it

There’s no harm in giving baby signing a go, as long as your expectations are realistic. A few practical points:

• Start around 6 to 9 months, once your baby has decent head control and is starting to reach and grasp with intention. Some babies won’t produce a recognisable sign back until closer to 10 or 12 months, and that’s completely normal.
• Pick a small number of high value signs to begin with, things like “milk”, “more”, “eat”, “finished” and “hurt”. Trying to teach twenty signs at once tends to overwhelm both of you.
• Say the word out loud every time you make the sign. The goal is to support spoken language, not replace it.
• Be consistent and patient. It can take weeks of repetition before a baby starts signing back, and some babies show little interest in it at all, which is fine too.
• Don’t worry if you drop it after a few weeks because it’s not clicking. It’s a communication tool, not a developmental requirement.

If you have concerns about your baby’s hearing, understanding, or general development, whether or not you’re using signing, it’s always worth raising this with your health visitor, GP or paediatrician rather than waiting to see if signing helps. Genuine speech or hearing delays need proper assessment, not a set of hand gestures.

The bottom line

Baby sign language is a reasonable, low risk way to give your baby another tool for getting their message across before they can talk. It’s a nice bonus for family communication, not a shortcut to a smarter or easier baby. Go into it expecting fewer frustrated pointing episodes at snack time, not a leg up on future exam results, and you’ll get a much fairer sense of what it can actually offer your family.