For our winter 2025-26 issue of Shelf Life, our quarterly print newsletter, we asked presenter Katy Roth all about communicating with your baby using American Sign Language (ASL)and how it has lasting benefits for the development of your child. She leads the monthly program, Sign with Katy, where she teaches you and your little one ASL vocabulary. The following is the complete interview, which was shortened for space in the newsletter.
Tell us a little bit about your background and why you got involved in teaching ASL to children and their caregivers.
My love for ASL (American Sign Language) stems all the way back to when I was in first grade. There was a boy in my class who was deaf, and he had a sign language interpreter with him. I listened to my teacher give lectures verbally, but watched the sign language interpreter bring the spoken words to life. It completely captured my attention and helped me “see” the words and stories that were being spoken. It’s amazing how adaptable the human brain is at a young age! I didn’t actually have the opportunity to learn ASL until I went away to college and earned a major in Elementary Education and a minor in Communicative Disorders.
I am the mother of a 3-year-old, and I began signing with my son once I was mentally capable of handling another challenge. I waited until he was 4 months old to begin signing with him, though I do wish I had begun the moment he was born.
What are the benefits of learning sign language for the child? For the caregiver?
Roughly 65% of the population is a visual learner, though some studies say it’s closer to 80%. Offering a beautiful visual language to babies through childhood is one of the easiest ways to help everyone communicate more effectively (though with varying abilities, hearing levels, etc.). Around 12-18 months of age, most children have simple words and begin to combine 2-word phrases. Babies can begin signing back to you between 5-12 months of age. This means babies are able to communicate well before they’re verbally capable! Sign language counts as language. Sign language counts as communicating, so does using gestures. If a child can communicate their wants and needs earlier, this means they’ll be less frustrated, more confident, and more eager to communicate. Communicating early will accelerate a child’s speech development, and they will have higher self-esteem. This also means you will be less frustrated because you can understand them more readily. In fact, when you introduce sign language at at early age, it unlocks the language area of the brain thereby expanding a child’s future language capabilities, it increases their comprehension, increases eye contact, increases their ability to decode a word on the page once they become a reader, expands their vocabulary and vocabulary comprehension, which can thereby increase their IQ levels (later in life) by up to 12 points! When you use sign language with your children, the human brain learns to categorize and organize language, structure, and vocabulary words into file folders, much like an organized file cabinet. This means that your child is actually increasing their executive functioning capabilities and learning steps and processes like “first, second, third, after that, & finally.”
In bilingual households, if each parent speaks their native tongue with their child, the child will learn and become proficient in both languages. You can not confuse your child with an influx of language and vocabulary. You can only benefit them by inundating them with a plethora of vocabulary. When I introduce a new verbal word to my son, I ask him to repeat it after me. I break it down into syllables. This is the same strategy I use when teaching him sign language. I introduce the word, ask him to repeat it using his hands, then I break it down a bit (show him exactly which hand shape to use with each hand). Rome wasn’t built in a day. Language doesn’t form in a day. The more you work together with vocabulary words (spoken or signed words), the higher the passion for learning will be. Together, you’ll have a shared joy, a shared love for learning or for communicating together. Your bond will deepen as you focus on your kiddo’s wants and needs since they’ll be able to communicate with you. They may not say a word or sign a word correctly right away. It may take patience, adaptation (on your part), and persistence to get it!
In short, children who learn multiple languages have stronger working memories. If you raise the bar (a little at a time), children will reach for it! If you provide children with the opportunity to grow and expand their knowledge, they will succeed. And what could be more fun than learning together?
What is one thing that you think caregivers could do right now to help them communicate better with their little one?
We are never too old to learn something new. Learning can be even more fun when we learn together. Learning a new language, a visual language like American Sign Language, can be a lot of fun if you and your little one learn alongside each other. How would I recommend starting? Learn 5 words in sign language (perhaps MILK, MORE, FINISHED, MOM, DAD). Challenge yourself, every time you say these words aloud, also do the sign for them. If you see these words in a book you’re reading to your little one, use your child’s face and body-space to demonstrate the sign (example: to show MOM, tap your open 5 hand’s thumb to their chin). Perhaps after 1-2 weeks, you’ll be ready to add 5 more new signs to your daily routines! So often in the younger grades, teachers use memory tricks, patterns, word-play, and songs. Why not use real sign language when clapping out “apple + pie”? Or why not teach a real sign alongside the sight words for beginning readers to bring verbal words to life?
Recently, someone asked me a really great question: “Now that your child is 3 years old and able to speak with you, when do you plan to stop signing with him? When is a good time to stop signing with our little ones?” My personal answer… is never. I love the opportunity to have a “secret language” with my son. It’s a way for him to always communicate with me in any setting (a loud concert, on a loud or busy train, through a window, while using a loud lawn mower, or if he’s uncomfortable in a specific setting and wants to leave immediately). But more than that, it’s a way for him to communicate with others as well. Did you know ASL is actually the third most common language in the USA? D/deaf people may use it, people of varying abilities, hearing people may use it, parents and babies may use it, and the elderly may use it. Most of us will begin to lose our hearing at some point in our lives. To me, there is no end to using ASL with my son. Learning a second language can only benefit him and open up more potential opportunities for him as he grows, learns, and becomes a working adult. Perhaps he’ll have a similar experience as I did once he enters first grade, and maybe he’ll be the person who forms a connection with that other student in need of a friend. Like any mother, I want the world for my son. I’d love for him to learn as many languages as possible, develop as many interests as possible, and accept others as much as possible. What better way than to continue using sign language with him?