#43 Baby Sign Language with Sheryl White

Recorded Wednesday, December 16th, 2020.

Our guest today is Sheryl White, a well-known baby sign language teacher in our area. She’s also a certified infant massage instructor, Reiki Master, and trained in her father-in-law Dr. Burton White’s program, “New Parents as Teachers,” based on his book The First Three Years of Life.

Sheryl has been teaching classes to parents, teachers, professionals, and caregivers since 1999. Her role is to facilitate and strengthen the relationship between infants and their caregivers, and she used baby sign language with all three of her children!

She has appeared in the business anthology Expert Profiles and in numerous media outlets, including CBS Boston, The Boston Globe, Massage Magazine, MetroWest Daily News, and School Library Journal.

During today’s show, we ask Sheryl:

• How she got started with baby signing

• Why she teaches American Sign Language (ASL) to babies instead of made-up signs

• What research says about ASL and accelerating spoken language

• When the best time to start signing is and how to approach it if a family uses more than one language at home

• How teaching baby sign today compares to 20 years ago

• One of her best success stories

• Her favorite sign

• Other tools and techniques she weaves into her classes

For more information about Sheryl and her offerings, visit babykneads.com.