So although I agree that infants who learn to use sign language in infancy learn it more quickly when taught very early, I have a few problems with the overall idea of learning sign language as a better way to communicate with young babies.
First of all, there is significant research to suggest that there is a critical period for language learning in which children's brain's seem to grasp the concepts of language more quickly than during any other period in their lives. If this is the case, how is it that children find it easier to communicate through sign language than speaking language if they supposedly occur at the same time in both hearing and non-hearing infants? So, let's say, the problem for children in speaking to their parents is that their vocal chords aren't fully developed to the point of speaking clearly, why is it then that non-hearing children also have babbling tendencies through signing? It seems that if in fact it was a lack of vocal chord development wouldn't this babbling phenomenon occur just in hearing children?
Another problem I have with this theory of early understanding through sign language is the notion that children can understand signs earlier than they can understand speech, how is this possible? It's not that I don't think that infants can understand signs, I've seen it and know that this is something these infants can in fact do, but why is it that we believe that infants can more easily understand a gesture made in their direction than a word spoken to them. Because "motherese" has been proven to be infants preferred way to be spoken to, how does this translate to sign language? There is no way to soften signs or make them more preferable to infants ears so I find it very difficult to believe that infants would prefer signs to speech.
Because I have seen children utilize sign language to achieve their desires I do not doubt that it is possible for infants to learn this type of communication, I just have a hard time believing that the preference and skill required is as black and white as some parents would like to believe.
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I agree that the reasoning behind the phenomena is not well defined. But perhaps the answer lies in part with the fact that roughly eighty percent of information gathered from our environment is visual. Then for the sake of discussion let us assume that this uneven distribution of sensory input is one that we handle instinctually. So bear with me when a take a further liberty in positing that babies have a neural predisposition toward gathering information in the most efficient manner possible. If that is also correct then perhaps a baby is more able and thus willing to devote its miniscule mental resources to visual stimuli than to aural stimuli, doing so under the evolutionarily advantageous assumption that more important information will come by way of the eyes than the ears. allowing it to learn sign language more quickly.
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