While on my three month maternity leave, I educated myself on teaching a hearing child baby signs and giving my baby the ability to express his important needs and thoughts through gestures.  What is “baby signing”?  Baby signing refers to the use of signs from American Sign Language (ASL) or other native languages—but with mother and baby modifications: that is, adjusting signing space, signing size, and sign duration or length to emphasize a salient sign and/or word. A dear friend of mine taught her daughter basic signs and I found it remarkable how her daughter – then one year old – was able to communicate her basic needs via sign language with her mom without the presence of any tantrums or frustrations. Of course, she got frustrated when she was not given what she wanted all the time, but the same is true for all toddlers.  I wanted to be able to communicate with my son at age when he still was not able to form words or vocalize his needs.  No, I did not have unrealistic expectation that this would happen overnight nor did I expect him to start signing prior to 9 months old, but I thought this was worth a try. Especially, if the possibly existed that we could potentially minimize frustration and tantrums.  Furthermore, I know this approach is not for every family. Over the past couple years, basic baby signs have become more widely used in day cares and nursery schools, but still remains to be a very controversial issue.  Some of the controversy relies around whether teaching a hearing baby/toddler sign language prior to learning to speak prolongs their verbal development.  Actually, according to Drs. Acredolo and Goodwyn’s federally funded research showed that using baby signs actually...