Inquiry Project

Topic/Inquiry Question

My topic proposal is about sign language. The main question I want to address is...

 How is sign language similar and different to spoken language and how can sign language me more advantageous?

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1)      I want to write about the differences and similarities of spoken and sign language and the effect it has on people.

2)      I chose this topic because there was a deaf convention at the hotel across from Boardwalk Billy’s where I work. The whole restaurant was filled with people that lip read and sign. My mind was flooded with questions of how we were going to communicate with them and if there would be any complications because of it.

3)      I have no experience and little knowledge of this topic.

4)      I am interested about this topic because I’ve always wanted to learn sign language because I can read lips okay. I have bad hearing so I pay attention to people’s lips often, but most of the time I overlook it. Writing about something sort of related would be of personal interest and easier to write about.

5)      I think I know basic things about this topic. Of course I know about spoken language and the effect on people around me when I use it, but sign language is a little more mysterious. I know people who use it have an alphabet and there must be things that are missing from not acoustically communicating. Such as voice inflection, the way it is learned, and how it is almost like a different language to people that don’t know it.

6)      I need to know more about the similarities and differences between the two forms of language and what is lost or not beneficial about either one compared to the other. I will use the internet, books in the library, and maybe talk to someone that knows sign and spoken language.

7)      I came up with this specific topic because I don’t know a lot about it, but I know just enough to where it would be interesting to learn about it. I think other people are curious about this topic too.

8)      How are both forms of language similar, different, beneficial, or not beneficial? How does either or both forms of language effect people in interpretation and emotionally? What are some facts about sign language that most people don’t know or understand?

9)      There may be multiple angles to my topic because I want to know a lot of different facts about my topic. I’m going to try to focus on the main points I listed in number 8.

10)   How is spoken language and sign language similar or different and is one advantageous over the other.

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REVISION!

My topic proposal is about sign language. The main question I want to address is...

How is sign language beneficial in teaching infants to learn to communicate and develop language?
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Inquiry Blog Post 2

This video doesn't go in depth about the benefits, but it gives a visual so that you can see that babies do pick up sign language and it can lead to better communication with other people. It is a good start to education if you ask me because the child is making their mind work in new ways.

To understand how sign language can benefit infants in learning especially in language development, we have to consider what role the brain has. Spatial intelligence is high in people that sign. Below is a paragraph describing the definition.( The simplest one I could find!)
" Spatial intelligence is the ability to draw accurate conclusions from observing a three-dimensional (3D) environment. It involves interpreting and making judgements about the shape, size, movement, and relationships between surrounding objects, as well as the ability to envision and manipulate 3D models of things that are not immediately visible."
 http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-spatial-intelligence.htm
another website that supports this is:  http://www.ehow.com/info_8638928_advantages-offer-over-spoken-language.html

 Great site for a list of benefits!

^^ the above link lists a number of benefits for baby sign language and elaborates in further detail.
Summary:

1. Cognitive skills - The baby will be able to communicate with you before being able to speak words.
2. Emotionally understanding- The baby can communicate with you and that can help the parent meet the needs of her baby instead of trying to guess what a cry means.
3. Educational benefits- The baby should have already started forming cognitive skills for learning by sign language and because of this can learn and speak faster.
4. Second language- Signing is comparable to another language and whether the baby has disabilities such as deafness or not, he or she can communicate later in life with other people using sign language.
5. Communication & Social skills- It is easier to interact with people if there is good communication and understanding.

In class research 10/31

"Hey Baby, What's your Sign?"
^^^
The above Fox article talks about baby sign language being a new fad in the parenting world and that it has just started to be researched. All the sources I've read, including this one, agree that it helps babies talk sooner and better. This article got my attention because it mentions the last "Meet the Fockers" movie there are twins being taught sign language. There are also dvds, books, and classes dedicated to this purpose.Because the media is starting to reflect the baby sign language trend I can't tell for sure if it going to stay around or if it is just popular right now.This article is from 2005 though.
Some benefits to teaching babies sign language that this article mentions are:

• reducing frustration resulting in better behavior
• learning language sooner
• improvement in meeting the needs of the child because they can communicate

A great quote I couldn't leave out is : "Signing is to crawling as talking is to walking."
Teaching babies to sign is basically a way to make an easier and quicker transition to talking. 

The Library's Database gave me a great source with a few images...

another one....

  

Works Cited

Barnes, Susan Kubic. "Sign Language With Babies: What Difference Does It Make?." Dimensions Of Early Childhood 38.1 (2010): 21-30. ERIC. Web. 31 Oct. 2012.

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Reaction to Presentation/Comments
 ( didn't get the chance to present)

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Annotated Bibliography                      

                                                                                      

    Dancho, Kelly "Enhancing Early Communication Through Infant Sign Training." Journal Of Applied Behavior Analysis 40.1 (2007): 15-23.
                 Academic Search Complete. Web. 12 Nov. 2012.

This journal is talking about more in depth research. It describes a study with four infants who were taught to sign then were studied in experiments. They are very basic experiments such as observation of signing under different circumstances like in a class or with parents. Another experiment was an observation on how whining and tantrums were replaced with signing by communicating with the infants. The author was trying to prove that baby sign language is beneficial, but she did this by explaining experiments to make it more factual than opinionated.  Because the journal gives a step by step analysis of the experiments and results, this is another strong source for me. It is scientific and written with an opening paragraph, explanation of the experiments, and finally a summary to tie all the results together. Therefore, this journal pertains to my topic because I’m trying to argue that baby sign language has been beneficial in situations and circumstances with other parents and infants. I could use this source to back up all my opinions on each benefit that I explain in my paper so that it will yield a stronger argument. This is one of my most valuable sources even though it was harder for me to read through.

    Doherty-Sneddon, Gwyneth. "The Great Baby Signing Debate." Psychologist21.4(2008)300-303.
                Academic Search Complete. Web. 12 Nov. 2012.

This article is a about research on baby sign language of hearing infants. Benefits are listed in this article that argues my opinion on this topic. Doherty includes citations from sources that are listed in blue on each page and most of the studies mentioned and cited shows evidence of baby sign language being beneficial. There are specific examples of people and what benefits of language were observed because of sign language. The author wrote to prove that sign language is causing good developmental results. She starts out with an example then explains what proof or opinion she has behind each example. This is a good way to argue her point in advocacy of this topic.  It is also easy to read. It is most likely directed towards parents as well as being studying the topic. The article supports my theory that teaching sign language to babies coincides with future spoken language and communication skills. This source shows the child psychology aspect of the topic and multiple benefits such as parent and child relationship, development of the child, and behavior improvements. Because my topic is mainly going to describe each benefit and explain its significance to the baby, I think this is a good source because it is one of the stronger sources I have found.

    Kelley, Tina. "Goo Goo in Sign Language? Gestures Are Now Baby Talk." New York Times 12 Aug. 2002: 4.
               Academic Search Complete. Web. 13 Nov. 2012.

This is a NY Times article. It has quotes from interviews and opinion from those people that observed. This source is easy to read and gives a basic outline of my topic. The reason the author wrote this article is probably because it is becoming a popular topic in the parenting world involving classes, books, and dvds. . The reason I chose to use this source is because of three sentences scattered throughout the article. One of these sentences involved mentioning the major researchers in the field which are Acredolo and Goodwyn. They are psychology professors in California who have done studies proving sign language has promoted higher intelligence scores with children who learned it than those who did not.  Also, benefits involving behavior and development are included in this article through examples of people. I can persuade the people reading my paper from the evidence assessed from the two professors and the benefits repetitively claimed. The NY Times article is giving me almost everything I know or have read previously on the subject of baby sign language and its benefits, but the few random sentences that my other sources don’t have is requiring me to keep this article as a source. It is the least valuable source listed, but it pertains to my paper because I need to involve the two professors because they will make my argument more powerful because they are well known for their tests on children.


Walters, Laurel Shaper. "Before they talk, they can `sign.'." Christian Science Monitor 23  Apr. 1998: 12.

              Academic Search Complete. Web. 12 Nov. 2012.

Walters gives examples of people that were interviewed or talked to about their children signing and the benefits they saw from their perspective. There are several imbedded benefits emphasized in the writing. The research of Acredolo and Goodwyn is also mentioned in the writing. They are important people in the study of teaching infants to sign. The author writes to tell others about this technique that she has discovered is growing more popular. It’s very simple writing with quotes from other people which makes it more personal to read. This is the first academic source I have read that gave tips on teaching sign language to babies like when to start teaching and how to make it fun and easy for the child such as a singing a song.  This is a good source although it is informal. It will be helpful to put some of this information in my paper because the parent’s opinion matches my opinion. This piece of writing has benefits, opinions of various parents and people, and random facts such as how sign language can be taught in a fun way while still creating a healthy parent and child connection. It will be a good source to add detail to my argument, but it isn’t my strongest source. I basically knew all of this information before I read it, but now that I am using it as a source it will be more than just my opinion being expressed.

 

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Rough Draft

Language is the life-long accumulation of speech and body gestures that human beings start at nearly the beginning of their lives. First babies coo, babble, and then approximately the first year mark is when babies say their first words. Communicating with others gives us a personal connection. At the beginning of our language learning journey, our parents and other family members are the people that we start those connections with.  Therefore, language is such an important part of life that people find ways to enhance communication skills. Children start learning to improve on language at a young age when starting school. In the last few decades there have been more creative efforts to improve language at an even younger age. At the age of six to nine months old some parents are teaching their infants sign language. Baby sign language is now being encouraged by physicians, parents, psychologists, and many more advocates.  Why has teaching sign language to infants become more popular among new parents and people studying this topic? Research and stories of experience from the community have shown that teaching babies sign language can set the foundation for cognitive skills at an earlier age, have a positive emotional impact on the child, improve social skills, and have educational benefits. 

I started researching this topic because I wanted to find out if baby sign language was beneficial and how it promoted development in language. I want to be an obstetrician and gynecologist one day so every chance I get I learn about fetal development and the first few years of a baby’s life. I have accomplished previous projects within the past two years about fetal presentation, taken pregnancy classes on fetal and baby development, and I have shadowed nurses and doctors at Stanly Regional Hospital in Albemarle, North Carolina. From these experiences I have accumulated a wide range of knowledge on early stages of life. However, the most helpful learning experience I participated in was taking psychology my freshman year in college.  Introductory psychology explains the basics of what babies go through after birth in the developmental process. For example, babies have blurred vision and no depth perception until a certain age. Language is just like any other development. Once a human starts learning or developing skills such as communication it doesn’t reverse. It keeps flourishing. That is why I think baby sign language is such a break through. We can start teaching our children how to communicate with us using body language before they can talk which means we are speeding up the learning process which can lead to only beneficial outcomes for the child. Some could argue that it doesn’t speed up the learning process or that we should just let children develop without our aid because they will develop in their own time. Teaching a baby sign language is optional to parents and takes a commitment of time and effort. You can decide for yourself if you think teaching baby sign language is worth it, but take a look at the following benefits that your child could experience first.

At the beginning of our lives our minds can be compared to a blank slate. After birth we age and eventually form cognitive skills. These skills are the basic foundation for everything that we learn. Baby sign language can help develop these essential skills. Babies can use body language such as pointing or waving before their minds are capable of forming words or sentences.  Using simples signs such as mom or milk can help an infant communicate before the speaking age.

Another benefit of teaching a baby sign language is the emotional aspect. It creates a closer relationship to the baby and the parent because they can communicate with each other. Infants can get frustrated when they want or need something but can’t tell their parents yet. This can lead to crying or tantrums that can easily be avoided with sign language. Sign language can fix the communication barrier so that the child can feel less misunderstood. For example, if the child is thirsty and they make the sign for milk the parent can interpret what they need and meet that need. This helps the child feel understood and close to the parent. Because the parent established that they can help the child if the child will try to communicate with them, next time they will try to communicate again instead of crying. In the article Enhancing Early Communication Through Infant Sign Training, the second experiment discussed talks about how there had to be repetitive sign training to teach the boy to replace crying with signing to communicate.  It is a learning process for the child, but it does work.

Social skills are important throughout life. We are constantly in contact with others. There is a correlation between people who have good communication skills and social skills. Having good communication skills makes people confident about interacting with others. Think about your own experiences in school. The people that could talk to anyone were generally happy, confident, and well liked. There were also the loners who didn’t always know how to talk to others. They were less confident, more shy around others, and in some cases less happy. Teaching baby sign language can establish confidence because the child is learning at an earlier age which can make them more advanced in communication. Gwyneth Doherty-Sneddon wrote an article pointing out evidence from other researchers that has proven children that were late talkers tend to be more shy and less outgoing. Because of the link between communication and social skills, sign language can be a tool to prevent negative behaviors caused by lack of communication.

Most of all, baby sign language advances the child’s learning process and can increase IQ. Developing early cognitive skills can speed the process of learning. In sign language the child is using signs to represent words. Eventually the child will be able to say those words and combine more words because they already have the foundation of language. “Sign language is to crawling as talking is to walking”, says Linda Acredelo who is a psychology professor that has done research in the field of baby sign language and has also co-wrote a book call “Baby Signs” with Susan Goodwyn. Their research supports teaching babies early communication skills because it creates better expressive and receptive spoken language later on in life and increases vocabulary. Laurel Shaper Walters wrote a piece called Before they can talk they can ‘sign’. After she introduces personal experiences with children signing she introduces the expert Linda Acredolo. Walters quotes her saying, "The signing babies were ahead of the pack at almost every measure at every age. They were learning to comprehend language faster, they were learning to talk faster, they were putting words together faster, and they were doing better on the infant IQ tests at two years," she says. Acredolo was referring to her extensive studies that she has been doing on baby sign language including books she’s written. Tina Kelley is an author of an article in the New York Times called Goo Goo in Sign Language? Gestures Are Now Baby Talk. She also mentions Acredolo and Goodwyn. A specific study was mentioned where the two researchers gave second graders an intelligence test showed that children that had learned sign language scored at least twelve points higher than the children who didn’t.

After the previous points made, I think that it is clear that baby sign language can have a big impact on a child’s life in small ways. Simply taking time to teach the child a few signs and repeating the words with them can make a big difference in brain growth and development.  After having a baby some people don’t think about starting education this early but maybe they should. Learning can be fun and a bonding experience between parent and child. There are no negative consequences to teaching a child how to communicate. It is going to happen eventually, yet it can be started earlier to give the child benefits or privileges that they may not have had without the parent’s effort to teach them. If you are considering having children teaching them baby sign language can be a good parenting tool to help your child. If more people were knowledgeable on this topic there might be more people trying to do something extra for their child just because they love them. I have never had a child, but I know someone who just had a baby. She has used sign language with her other children and noticed some of the benefits that I have previously explained. Therefore, she is going to do the same for her new baby in hopes that she can help him develop language with her until he is on his own learning in school. There are many benefits of sign language with hearing children as well as children with disabilities. Sign language is basically a second language and can be beneficial to the parent as well as the child.

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FINAL DRAFT with WORKS CITED 

 

Benefits of Baby Sign language
        Language is the life-long accumulation of speech and body gestures that human beings start at nearly the beginning of their lives. First babies coo using the throat to make sound, then they babble using the tongue, and then approximately the first year mark is when babies say their first words (Connolly  1). Communicating with others gives us a personal connection. At the beginning of our language learning journey, our parents and other family members are the people that we start those connections with.  Therefore, language is such an important part of life that people find ways to enhance communication skills. Children start going to school to start improving on language. In the last few decades there have been more creative efforts to improve language at an even younger age. At the age of six to nine months old some parents are teaching their infants sign language. Baby sign language is now being encouraged by physicians, parents, psychologists, and many more advocates.  Why has teaching sign language to infants become more popular among new parents and people studying this topic? Research and stories of experience from the community have shown that teaching babies sign language can set the foundation for cognitive skills at an earlier age, have a positive emotional impact on the child, improve social skills, create educational benefits, and most of all having more fun with the infant .

I started researching this topic because I wanted to find out if baby sign language was beneficial and how it promoted development in language. I want to be an obstetrician and gynecologist one day so every chance I get I try to learn about fetal development and the first few years of a baby’s life. I have accomplished previous projects within the past two years about fetal presentation, taken pregnancy classes on fetal and baby development, and I have shadowed nurses and doctors at Stanly Regional Hospital in Albemarle, North Carolina. From these experiences I have accumulated a wide range of knowledge on early stages of life. However, the most helpful learning experience I participated in was taking psychology my freshman year in college.  Introductory psychology explains the basics of what babies go through after birth in the developmental process. For example, babies have blurred vision and no depth perception until a certain age. Language is just like any other development. Once a human starts learning or developing skills such as communication it doesn’t reverse. It keeps flourishing. That is why I think baby sign language is such a break through. We can start teaching our children how to communicate with us using body language before they can physically talk which means we are speeding up the learning process that can lead to beneficial outcomes for the child. Some could argue that it doesn’t speed up the learning process or that we should just let children develop without our aid because they will develop in their own time. Teaching a baby sign language is optional to parents and takes a commitment of time and effort. Infants can’t learn sign language in a day, but taking the time to teach an infant sign language can have the following benefits.

    The first benefit is training the infant’s mind to start learning cognitive skills. At the beginning of our lives our minds can be compared to a blank slate. After birth we age and eventually form cognitive skills. These skills are the basic foundation for everything that we learn. Baby sign language can help develop these essential skills. Babies can use body language such as pointing or waving before their minds are capable of forming words or sentences.  Using simple signs such as mom, dad, hungry, pain, more, cat, dog, or milk can help an infant communicate before the speaking age. They are simple signs. For example, the sign for hungry is touching all the fingers together and moving the hand towards and away from the mouth. Say a child is hungry and they make this motion to the mother. She can recognize that the child is hungry and feed them. More elaborate signs take a step further past signs such as pointing or waving because they are specific and create more brain connections that eventually turn into words and sentences.

           In addition, another benefit of teaching a baby sign language which is the emotional aspect. Infants can get frustrated when they want or need something but can’t form words yet. This can lead to crying or tantrums that can easily be avoided with sign language. Sign language can fix the communication barrier so that the child can feel less misunderstood. For example, if the child is thirsty and they make the sign for milk the parent can interpret what they need and meet that need. This helps the child feel understood. It creates a closer relationship to the baby and the parent because they can communicate with each other. Because the parent established that they can help the child if the child will try to communicate with them, next time they will try to communicate again instead of crying. In the article “Enhancing Early Communication Through Infant Sign Training”, the second experiment discussed talks about how there had to be repetitive sign training to teach the boy to replace crying with signing to communicate.  It is a learning process for the child, but it does work (Dancho 15-23).

        Furthermore, social skills are important throughout life. We are constantly in contact with others. There is a correlation between people who have good communication skills and social skills. Having good communication skills makes people confident about interacting with others. Think about your own experiences in school. The people that could talk to anyone were generally happy, confident, and well liked. There were also the loners who didn’t always know how to talk to others. They were less confident, shyer around others, and in some cases less happy. Teaching baby sign language can establish confidence because the child is learning at an earlier age which can make them more advanced in communication. Gwyneth Doherty-Sneddon wrote an article pointing out evidence from other researchers that has proven children that were late talkers tend to be shyer and less outgoing. Because of the link between communication and social skills, sign language can be a tool to prevent negative behaviors caused by lack of communication (300). Sign language benefits children as they age because they are developing confidence that improves social skills.

           Most of all, baby sign language advances the child’s learning process and can increase IQ. Developing early cognitive skills can speed the process of learning. In sign language the child is using signs to represent words. Eventually the child will be able to say those words and combine more words because they already have the foundation of language. “Sign language is to crawling as talking is to walking”, says Linda Acredelo who is a psychology professor that has done research in the field of baby sign language and has also co-wrote a book call “Baby Signs” with Susan Goodwyn ( Fox News). Their research supports teaching babies early communication skills because it creates better expressive and receptive spoken language later on in life and increases vocabulary. Laurel Shaper Walters wrote a piece called “Before they can talk they can ‘sign’”. After she introduces personal experiences with children signing she introduces the expert Linda Acredolo. Walters quotes her saying, "The signing babies were ahead of the pack at almost every measure at every age. They were learning to comprehend language faster, they were learning to talk faster, they were putting words together faster, and they were doing better on the infant IQ tests at two years" (Walters 1). Acredolo is one of the most famous people in the field that studies this topic. She has done research and tests with children. She got interested in sign language because of her own daughter. Another source that mentions Acredolo is Tina Kelley. Kelley is an author of an article in the New York Times called “Goo Goo in Sign Language? Gestures Are Now Baby Talk”. A specific study was mentioned where the two researchers gave second graders an intelligence test and it showed that children that had learned sign language scored at least twelve points higher than the children who didn’t. In summation, Acredolo has contributed to research on baby sign language that proves baby sign language has direct correlation with advancing children beyond their age in school and benefiting education.

               Above all, parents want to do what is best for their child and be close with them. What better way to strengthen a relationship with a child than to teach them something? In the article “Before they talk, they can ‘sign’”, Walters says, “Games and songs are a good way to introduce gestures. Many children, for example, learn to imitate a spider when singing the "Eensy-weensy spider" song ” (1). Singing songs, reading books together, and spending individual time with the child is valuable to the child. Children need to be nurtured and want their parents more than anybody else during infancy.  There is no reason why learning something can’t be fun for the parent and child.

         Moreover, cognitive benefits, emotional benefits, social benefits, educational benefits, and having fun can be present in a child’s life because of baby sign language. I think it is clear that baby sign language can have a big impact on a child’s life in various ways. Simply taking time to teach the child a few signs and repeating the words with them can make a big difference in brain growth and development.  After having a baby some people don’t think about starting education this early but maybe they should. Learning can be fun and a bonding experience between parent and child. There are no negative consequences to teaching a child how to communicate. It is going to happen eventually, yet it can be started earlier to give the child benefits or privileges that they may not have had without the parent’s effort to teach them. If you are considering having children teaching them baby sign language can be a good parenting tool to help your child. If more people were knowledgeable on this topic there might be more people trying to do something extra for their child just because they love them. I have never had a child, but I know a mother named Amy who just had a baby. She has used sign language with her other children and noticed some of the benefits that I have previously explained. Therefore, she is going to do the same for her new baby in hopes that she can help him develop language with her until he is on his own learning in school.  Sign language is not limited to the disabled community like deaf people. The hearing community can also utilize sign language. One should consider sign language as a second language that is beneficial to the parent as well as the child.

Works cited

Connolly, Maureen. "Your Baby:10 Milestones for the First 2 Years."

     CNN. Cable News Network, 7 June 2007. Web. 03 Dec. 2012.

Dancho,Kelly ."Enhancing Early Communication Through Infant Sign Training." Journal Of Applied Behavior Analysis 40.1 (2007): 15-23.

    Academic  Search Complete. Web. 12 Nov. 2012.

Doherty-Sneddon, Gwyneth. "The Great Baby Signing Debate." Psychologist 21.4 (2008): 300303.      

    Academic Search Complete. Web. 12 Nov. 2012.

"Hey Baby, What’s Your Sign."  Fox News.

    FOX News Network, 28 Sept. 2005. Web. 03 Dec. 2012.

Kelley, Tina. "Goo Goo in Sign Language? Gestures Are Now Baby Talk." New York Times. 12 Aug. 2002:4.          

     Academic Search Complete. Web. 13 Nov. 2012.

Walters, Laurel Shaper. "Before they talk, they can `sign.'." Christian Science Monitor 23 Apr. 1998: 12.       

    Academic Search Complete. Web. 12 Nov. 2012.

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LAST BLOG POST/REFLECTION

The blog assignment was my least favorite part of the class. I have trouble using technology anyways, but I had to worry about whether I had all the assigned blog posts and if they were correctly done. It was time consuming and we were also doing the blog during the TIB essay and starting the argumentative essay. I could've spent more time working on my essay rather than trying to meet the requirements for the blog. I tried my best to keep in organized and informative about my topic of baby sign language. I don't feel a sense of closure with the blog. I don't feel like I accomplished or learned anything with the blog. I organized my important writing pieces in almost the same way in this portfolio. I think that the blog should be omitted for any future classes.