Baby Talk
Babies normally start to talk when they are 13 to 15 months old. Ryan Jones is only eight months old, but he is already “talking” with his parents. When lie is hungry, he opens and closes his hand. This means milk. He also knows the signs for his favorite toy and the word more.
Ryan is not deaf, and his parents are not deaf, but his mother and father are teaching him to sign. They say a word and make a sign at the same time. They repeat this again and again. When ___1___ Ryan’s parents think that he will be a happier baby because he can communicate with them.
Ryan s parents are teaching Ryan to sign because of a man named Joseph Garcia. Although Garcia was not from a deaf family, he decided to learn American Sign Language (ASL). First, he took courses in ASL. Then he got a job helping deaf people communicate with hearing people. In his work, he saw many deaf parents sign to their infants. He noticed that these babies were able to communicate much earlier than hearing children. ___2___ When they were one year old, they could use as many as 50 signs.
Garcia decided to try something new. He taught ASL to parents who were not deaf. The families started to teach signs to their infants when they were six or seven months old. ___3___ More and more parents took Garcia’s ASL classes. Like Ryan’s family, they were excited about signing with their babies. They wanted to give their babies a way to communicate before they could use spoken words.
Some people worry about signing to babies. They are afraid that these babies won’t feel a need to talk. Maybe they will develop spoken language later than other babies. ___4___ In fact, one study found just the opposite. Signing babies actually learned to speak earlier than other children. As they grow older, these children are more interested in books. They also score higher on intelligence tests1.
There is still a big question for parents: Which are the best signs to teach their babies ? Some parents make their own signs. Other parents want to teach ASL. ___5___ There’s no clear answer, but we do know this: All signing babies and their families are talking quite a lot!
词汇：
normally /'n :m( )li/ adv. 正常地；通常地，一般地
infant /'inf nt / n. 婴儿；幼儿；未成年人
communicate /k 'mju:nikeit/ 通信；交流；感染
opposite /' p zit/ adj. 相反的；n. 对立面，反义词
注释：
1. intelligence test：智力测试
练习：
AHowever, research does not show this.
BAll parents want to teach babies to sign.
CRyan learns a new sign, his family is very excited.
DThese babies started using signs about two months later.
EIt can be useful because many people understand it.
FThey talked with signs by the time they were eight months old.