Use of Asl on Development

The article, Mother's Depression Impedes Baby's Development, discussed the speech of depressed mothers and how it relates to their child's development. According to the article depressed people tend to speak with a relatively flat pitch. However, infants are known to react more strongly to speech that is at a high pitch. The author of this article feels that this may explain why children of depressed mothers often perform more poorly than other children on child development tests.

The article also reports findings of Peter Kaplan and Jo-Anne Bachorowski's study of two hundred and twenty five four-month-old children. They tested the infants to see how they responded to women with low to moderate symptoms of depression compared to severely depressed women. They found that the less depressed women changed their pitch tone while the severely depressed women used a monotone voice. The researchers concluded that the pitch changes aided in the ability for infants to process information efficiently, while severely depressed women lack in assisting the infants state of arousal.

The author of this article concluded that because depressed mothers speak in a flat pitch, they are failing to stimulate their infants. By lacking the familiar characteristics of baby talk, depressed mothers could be causing delays in acquiring language and other cognitive milestones.

The article, Infants Use Sign Language to Communicate at Ohio State School, discusses a pilot program coordinated by Kimberlee Whaley. In Whaley's program infants as young as nine months are taught sign language in order to communicate some of their needs and desires. Previously, there has been use of sign language in childcare centers devoted to children with special needs. However, this is the first program that has used sign language formally in classrooms for children without disabilities. Whaley believes that although infants lack the ability to use spoken language, they do have the motor skills to use sign language.

In the classroom the children are not being taught American Sign Language as a formal language. Instead, the children learn a few signs, for example: "eat", "milk", "more", "all done", and "sleep". They learn the signs similar to how they learn spoken language. The teachers introduce the signs naturally and speak the words and sign them at the same time. Some children