Tackling toddler tantrums

I'm currently marking research papers for a class I teach within the Communicative Disorders Assistant program at Durham College. In class we discuss enhancing communication for individuals with autism, Down's syndrome and other special needs. It's inspiring! 'Baby sign language' is becoming more and more common place and parents of children of any ability are more comfortable with the idea of signing with their children. Whether someone uses speech, text, sign or pictures ... any communication helps!

Baby signing makes a big difference during the first two years with a child. My daughter's first sign was "NO" at 11 months and at 18 months she had over 80 words (a combination of spoken words and signs). Typically, toddlers at 18 months have about 10-20 words. That's a big difference when it comes to communicating with your child.

One of the things that we talk about a lot in my college class is behaviour. We don't talk about how to suppress challenging behaviours though, we talk about how to change them. There are four reason behind any behaviour: 1) to make a request; 2) to get attention; 3) to escape a situation and 4) for sensory reasons. Three out of four of these are communication based! If we can teach toddlers, and anyone, appropriate ways to request, e.g., "No, I want the BANANA", get attention, e.g., "My eye HURTS", and to communicate "I'm tired. I'm finished" etc; just think of the temper tantrums that can be avoided! Using sign language with your baby, and toddler, definitely can reduce frustrations for everyone!

By Sara Bingham

Sara Bingham is the founder of WeeHands and the author of The Baby Signing Book. WeeHands is the world's leading children's sign language and language development program for babies, toddlers and preschool children.