Understand the Difference Between American & Baby Sign Language

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Nicki with baby signs on behalf of Expert Village. And in this clip we'll talk about American sign language. People often ask me what's the difference between doing baby signs and American sign language, the official language of the deaf community? There is actually no difference. But there are several signs that we modify. The baby signs program uses signs that are baby friendly that are easy for babies to do and sometimes there are signs that little baby fingers are not able to do. So for instance the sign for dog is patting your leg and snapping your fingers. Well of course a 12 month old baby is not going to be able to snap their fingers but they can certainly pant like a dog which is what they see when they see a dog a lot of the time. That's the dog to them. So you can teach them a more iconic sign which is dog and later as the children get older and it's important to you, if it's important to you to have American sign language in your life, for instance if there's a deaf or hard of hearing person in your family, you can continue on using the American sign language official sign. Another iconic sign would be cereal. The baby sign is just pinching your fingers together representing picking up cereal from the plate or maybe the O-shape cereal. That's the difference between baby signs and American sign language. "