Let fingers do the talking

Jerry looks at me. "Erggh, blerp, ga," he says.

"Right," I say.

"What on earth are you doing?" asks Raymond, transfixed.

"I am signing to him," I say. "I am finding new ways to communicate with him." "Oh dear," says Raymond, and off he goes down the stairs, giggling.

He may well laugh, but baby signing is all the rage now among middle-class parents. I had never heard of it, or seen it, until I was at the local village fete and spied a thirtysomething woman gesticulating towards her nine-month-old daughter. She was saying things like, "Do you want some MORE?" and then patting the back of her hand with her palm. I assumed her daughter was deaf but, later on, when we found ourselves both queuing for the home-made tea cakes, and she started the whole palm-patting thing again, I asked how long it had taken her to learn to sign. "I've just started," she said. "I'm sure Isadora will pick it up soon." She then told me that babies who learn to sign early start speaking early, and I said wouldn't speech be difficult for a deaf baby? "Oh Isadora's not deaf," she said. "I'm doing baby signing. Everyone's doing it in America."

Now, courtesy of American child-development scientist Joseph Garcia and his book Joseph Garcia's Complete Guide to Baby Signing, it's catching on here. I have three children. Raymond, eight, and Leonard, two, are too old, but Jerry, at one, is the perfect age for it. So I am going to try to sign to Jerry for a month as, according to the book, a month is the least amount of time needed for the baby to catch on. The idea behind baby signing is actually very simple. It is to improve communication between the main carer of the baby, usually the mother, and the baby. Or, as the book says, "Baby signing gives babies a language with which they can share their thoughts and needs with their parents well before they can talk."

Once the baby learns how to sign, all that frustration will apparently leave them behind so that instead of wailing because they want more milk, they will sign to their mother MORE MILK, and thus everyone will live in peace and harmony.

Unfortunately, on day one, I have already gone wrong. According to the book, I've gone on to advanced signing before we've accomplished the elementary words. I am supposed to start with MILK (open and close one hand) and MORE (pat one flat palm and fingers against the back of my hand a few times). I resolve to start again. Jerry is now in his highchair waiting for his morning bottle of milk. He looks at me expectantly. "Would you like some MILK?" I say, opening and closing my hand in front of him.

"Ga," says Jerry. I get him his milk. When I turn around little Jerry has his hands in front of him and he is clenching and unclenching his fingers. Is he signing to me this early? He must be a genius!

I make sure I am in Jerry's sight range and that I am "engaging" with him, as recommended by the book, and I ask again, "do you want this MILK?". I show him the bottle and do my milk sign. Sure enough, Jerry looks at me and clenches and unclenches his hand again. He then devours his bottle. "MORE?" I ask him once he has finished, patting one palm against the back of my hand.

"Ga!" says Jerry.

"MORE?" I say again. Jerry starts gurgling. Then he sticks both hands in the air.

"Gaaa!" he yells, clenching and unclenching his fists. Hmm.

We get the MILK thing going very well. For the next week, I try to build on my success. Jerry is a master at clenching and unclenching his fists. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to be able to do much more than that. I try loads of signs with him. I show him our dog. "DOG," I say, pointing the first two fingers of both hands downwards like a dog begging, and do small downwards movements.

"Ma-ma-ma-ma," says Jerry.

I do BROTHER (I rub my two fists together in an alternating up-and-down motion) and DADDY and MUMMY and CUDDLE (I cuddle myself) and DUCK and DARK and BED and SLEEPY.

"Da-da-da," he says to all of these and then waves his little fists around. "He wants nothing but MILK!" says Raymond. He starts practising on Leonard. "Whasat?" says Leonard as Raymond shows him RABBIT (two fingers up like ears) and ELEPHANT (he vaguely tries to sketch out a trunk with his hand). Then Jerry starts doing his milk signing again.

I consult the trouble-shooting section of the book. "My baby makes one sign for everything. What should I do?" "Often a young baby will make her first sign (perhaps for MILK or MORE) and will discover the sign gets results," says the book. "She will then use that sign for everything. This is perfectly normal and clearly demonstrates your child's understanding that the sign symbolises something." The book then suggests that I show Jerry many more signs and "provide an environment that stimulates communication". "Consistency and repetition are the key to helping your baby understand," says the book. And so we start again.

Week three, and I am somewhat frustrated at our lack of progress. Despite singing songs from the "Let's rhyme, let's sign!" section of the book ("If you're happy and you know it..." I do HAPPY by brushing one horizontal palm against the other a couple of times and then clap my hands at the required bit), Jerry is still doing the MILK sign accompanied by advanced double-babbling. "Ma-ma-ma-ma," he says. "Da-da-da-da."

I go to my local playgroup. Just as I am telling Jerry I am about to change his nappy, "CHANGE" I say, clenching my hands into fists, putting my wrists together and twisting my hands back and forth, I notice another mother doing it too. It turns out that she goes to local baby-signing classes. I ask her how it is going, all the time staring intently at her baby girl to see if she's got the hang of it. The baby looks no more involved than Jerry, but the mother tells me that her baby has, contrary to all appearances, grasped the nettle when it comes to signing. "She can tell me when she's hungry or cold or when she's tired," says the mother. "I feel we communicate much better now than we did before, and she cries a lot less." Later on she tells me she also likes the idea of baby signing because, according to the teacher, it helps babies speak earlier and have a broader vocabulary.

Back at home, I start thinking about this. Why does anyone want their child to speak earlier? I'm quite happy to hear Jerry ga and bla away for as long as he likes. Leonard, who's been speaking pretty clearly for about six months, never stops saying "Whasat?". "Whasat?" he says, spying a lump of something in the road. "A dead badger," I say. "Whas dead?" he says, and on it goes all day. And Raymond now has attitude coursing though his voice. "What do you mean you don't know what 33 per cent of 2,485 is?" he says.

And there is something about baby signing which strikes me as a bit dubious. It smacks slightly of the over-competitive mother with nothing much else to do. Personally, I feel Jerry and I are pretty simpatico with each other already. Then again, there are times when I ask Jerry "what do you want?" when he is having the occasional hissy fit. Maybe if we'd persevered I'd never have to ask a non-verbal baby a question he cannot possibly answer. The book is stuffed full of stories from parents whose lives have been transformed by the advice. It's just that mine won't be one of them.

Joseph Garcia's 'Complete Guide to Baby Signing' is published by Babysigners at £29.95 For information go to: www.babysigners.co.uk; and to find out about baby signing classes, e-mail emma.finlay-smith@babysigners.co.uk

Need to know

* You can start signing with a baby of any age, though you probably won't see results until your baby is seven months or older.

* Advocates claim that babies who have learnt to sign have an earlier understanding of language and learn to speak earlier.

* Begin with simple signs such as "eat" and "drink", and emphasise the word .

* Start with a sign for something that your baby is interested in. The first sign that most babies pick up is "more" in relation to food.

* Research funded by the US National Institute of Health has shown that eight-year-olds who signed as babies have on average an IQ 12 points higher than non-signers. However, the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists say baby signing is unnecessary for most children.