"Baby Signs" -- good thing or not?

[Carolyn Buck-Gengler]

Greetings,

I have a question for you language acquisition experts.

There is a product out there, a book called "Baby Signs" that claims that
not only can babies learn sign earlier than speech, but that it can help
in their acquisition language (at least, that is my understanding of the
claim).  I assume the book gives parents hints on types of things to try
signs for, if not the specific signs to try.  (I've seen the book, but
never looked at it that closely; I keep hearing about it from non-linguist
friends and relatives.)

I have a practical interest in getting expert opinions about this, namely
whether this would be a good thing to try with my 6-month-old son Brent.
(I also have academic interests in language acquisition, having worked
with Lise Menn in the past, but am currently not actively involved with
it, except of course with Brent! :-)

It seems to me that on the one hand, it COULD be a reasonable or even
really good thing to try, but on the other hand, it COULD just be trendy,
a fad, a waste of time, or worse.  I've heard a bit about it in the
popular press, but have heard nothing from language acquisition
researchers.  Do any of you know about this book, and have opinions as to
whether it is a worthwhile thing to try?

Thanks in advance,
Carolyn Buck-Gengler

Carolyn Buck-Gengler            email: Carolyn.Buck-Gengler at Colorado.edu
Dept. of Psychology, CB 345     phone: 303/492-4156
University of Colorado          WWW:http://psych.colorado.edu/~buckc/cjbg.html
Boulder, CO  80309-0345