Gymboree offers fun and interactive classes to help you learn to sign with your baby! Gymboree’s British Sign Language-based classes feature fun activities and plenty of songs and rhymes, all designed to introduce you and your pre-verbal child to the world of pre-verbal communication.
Babies as young as 5 or 6 months can benefit from infant signing. Babies can learn and use signs long before they begin speaking. “Babies know what they want to say," says a well-known infant singing expert, “They're just not mature enough, physically, to form the words."
Some experts say that when hearing babies learn sign language, their brains develop further than those of babies who learn only spoken language. Young children who learn to sign develop their eyes sooner because sign language uses the eyes to transmit information more than any spoken language, according to Dr. Marilyn Daniels, a professor of speech communication and author of the book "Dancing with Words: Signing for Hearing Children's Literacy."
Language is stored and processed in the left side of the brain while information received through the eyes is processed by the right side. “Children who sign have the opportunity to use both the left and right sides” says Daniels. “This is a wonderful advantage because you are using both hemispheres of the brain, building more synapses in the brain." This would explain the fact that research has shown signing babies to develop speech faster, to have larger vocabularies and to have higher IQs.
Infant signing is all about empowering your baby, facilitating communication, and growing the bond between you and your child. Check with your local Gymboree for class availability and times.
