Baby Fingers: Unlocking The Benefits Of Teaching American Sign Language To Hearing Children
Baby Fingers, founded by Lora Heller in 2000, takes a unique approach to teaching communication skills: rather than relying on spoken words, Baby Fingers has developed a method of using American Sign Language to build language skills in hearing children.
Though American Sign Language is typically taught only to deaf children, Baby Fingers has built its practice on the premise that even hearing children can benefit from learning to sign. Sign language has utility both for infants, and for older children who have already developed the ability to communicate verbally.
Because sign language is situated somewhere between non-verbal and verbal communication, pre-verbal children tend to find it easier to master than spoken language. As a result, the Baby Fingers program has frequently been able to elicit sign-language responses from children as young as six months. Even though they aren