Baby signs boost IQ by 12 points

[Kathy Hirsh-Pasek]

Brian,

I could not agree more and it is among many untested claims in the  
literature.  In 2005, the Kaiser Foundation did a report about the  
claims made by many products that are simply unfounded in the  
literature.  These claims have, however, fueled a 20 billion dollar  
educational toy industry so we must all be mindful of how we are  
represented outside the halls of academe. I was for example horrified  
by claims from  toys suggesting that even  6 mo olds could learn 5  
languages by pushing a series of buttons.

On baby sign in particular, I have seen a number of tapes in which  
parents use baby sign with children and I am always heartened by the  
fact that they not only use sign, but also concurrently speak more to  
their children.  Thus, the results of baby sign that are reported are  
not for sign alone.  Further, parents who are more likely to buy the  
products and to use baby sign are most likely those who also want to  
communicate more with children.  To the extent that more language  
input and language content boosts later IQ scores (not necessarily IQ  
but the scores), we have a potential mediator.  I do not know of any  
definitive published evidence on the IQ difference though I know  
Linda Acredolo has a number of papers on the effects.  Even in those  
papers, I wonder about selection bias and the fact that sign is  
accompanied by oral language.

A final note, is that I actually like the baby sign approach used by  
Acredolo and Goodwyn and I think the product is a good one. Other  
baby sign approaches claim to teach "sign language" and that could  
not be farther from the truth (unless of course knowing a few signs  
from ASL is the same as learning the language). More work needs to be  
done in this area given that it has captured the imagination of  
parents and teachers.

kathy






On Oct 17, 2007, at 9:19 PM, Brian MacWhinney wrote:

> Dear Info-CHILDES,
>
>      During the flurry of discussion of the C/P contrast, there was  
> an message from Mechthild Kiegelmann that seemed to slip under the  
> radar screen.  This message summarized replies to a query about  
> Baby Signs.  I spent some time tracing the various web links  
> involved and I would like to draw colleagues' attention to one  
> issue in this research that troubles me.  This is the status of a  
> report by Acredolo and Goodwyn, which is cited prominently at  
> www.babysigns.com and www.signingtime.com  
> (STResearch_Summary.pdf).  This reports speaks of a 12 point  
> "increase" in IQ measured at age 8 for children who are taught Baby  
> Signs when they are toddlers.  Interestingly, Mechthild's links  
> also point to an article from the Canadian Language and Literacy  
> Research Network by J Cyne Johnston, Andrée Durieux-Smith, and  
> Kathleen Bloom that challenges the claims of this study by noting  
> that it provides no description of subject recruitment provedures,  
> attempts at random assignment, or evidence of any pretesting.  They  
> conclude that, "The high accessibility of a wide range of baby  
> signing products is not matched by good quality evidence that would  
> reinforce manufacturers' claims."
>       It is worth adding that the groups were already different  
> when the Bailey was given at 24 months, but this is presented not  
> as evidence of initial group differences, but rather as the result  
> of the initial effects of the treatment.  The relevant study was  
> presented as a conference paper at ISIS in 2000, but has never been  
> published in a journal.
>    I have mixed feelings about the plausibility of this result.  I  
> certainly do not view IQ as immutable and genetically-given.  I am  
> also quite convinced that Baby Signs provide an excellent method  
> for achieving early and rewarding communications with toddlers.   
> However, I find it difficult to believe that a program in Baby  
> Signs alone could achieve a 12-point increase in IQ when several  
> years of Head Start lead to nothing measurably permanent.
>    I hope that academic researchers take these unpublished claims  
> with a healthy grain of salt.  If there are newer studies  
> supporting these claimed gains in IQ, I would love to learn about  
> them.
>
> --Brian MacWhinney, CMU