This research has turned up a whole host of benefits to signing. Results like these have led to research on how signing could be used to improve early infant education. This put the signers in the top 25% of eight year olds, compared to the non-signers, who were close to average 2. Signers showed IQ’s 12 points higher than the non-signers, even though they had long since stopped signing. Surprisingly, there was still a difference. The authors of the NIH study followed up with the children at eight years old. Their lead seemed to shrink a little after two years old, but even at three years old, the signers were still ahead 1. The lead of the signing group continued to grow, with the signers exhibiting verbal skills three months ahead of the non-signers at two years old. Surprisingly, the signing group were more advanced talkers than the group given verbal training. The second group was given verbal training. The most significant research was an NIH-funded study comparing two groups of 11-month-old babies.
Far from slowing down speech, baby sign language actually increases the rate of verbal development and at the same time increases the parent/child bond. Research on baby sign language has found that teaching baby signs improved cognitive and emotional development.
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