Speech experts in St. John's are helping babies and parents communicate better by teaching sign gestures

A new class in St. John's is helping communication between parents and their babies run smoother by teaching them hand gestures and signs.

Stephanie Peddle and Marlena Hickey, speech-language pathologists at Repose Wellness, formed a group to gather with parents and their youngsters.

Through songs and stories, they teach them how to communicate through the movements of their hands and fingers. Hickey added they use gestures along with other communication strategies to go hand-in-hand with spoken words, to improve total communication.

Hickey said babies as young as six months old can sign — using gestures to communicate before verbal speech is expected. Therefore, teaching them to communicate through gestures can be just the thing to smooth out communication frustrations, she said.

"[Babies] are smart. They know what they want and what they want to do, but they just can't get it out easily by speaking. So having the ability to sign early is so important and such a game changer," she said.

"[It's] useful for almost any activity, like when eating or during bath time."

Peddle says signing requires big motor gestures, which babies can access earlier than the more fine motor movements required for speech. She adds they teach signs and gestures 

The best way the child can learn the gestures, she said, is through "modelling, modelling, modelling."

During interactions and routines at home, parents can model the gestures for their children.

However, the magic happens in the waiting between the gestures, Peddle says.

For example, when teaching sign language for counting to three and go, the parent can gesture the numbers, then wait for the child to gesture the word "go," she said, adding the approach reinforces the learning process.

The duo recently started offering the classes and currently have one active group. They plan to open more classes this month with the aim of having new groups every month. Parents can contact them through Repose Wellness, a St. John's-based company that offers various clinical services.

LISTEN | Speech specialists on how babies communicate through gestures: 

Weekend AM6:12Signs before talking

Weekend AM's Maddie Ryan visits a baby sign language class and learns how little ones can learn to communicate before they even start to talk. 

"When we see late talkers here in our clinic, we often suggest to parents to consider using big body gestures and sign language if their child is not yet communicating through speaking," Hickey said.

And speaking is only one way babies communicate, she said. By the time a child is 16 months old, parents can expect them to know 16 gestures, such as waving, pointing, reaching their arms to be picked up and blowing a kiss.

"These are actual indicators and precursors for what their verbal language skills will look like down the road. So that's why it's so important to implement signs and gestures very early on and model, model, model it to our babies."

Download our free CBC News app to sign up for push alerts for CBC Newfoundland and Labrador. Sign up for our daily headlines newsletter here. Click here to visit our landing page.