Letters to the Editor
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Two things
As the mother of a toddler, and a girl on the way who will spend the first year of her life in "boy clothes", I have to disagree with the author's idea of baby sign language. Paul is completely missing the point. Children are able to sign long before they are able to speak words, and this was particularly true for my son. Though he was verbally quiet his first 15 months (due to a late-diagnosed physiological problem with his mouth), he did learn four signs that communicated everything: eat, milk, more and water. Add in pointing and we usually knew what he needed.
Of course, we didn't teach him because we thought he'd ace his SAT's later on. We taught him because several pediatricians and published research said this was beneficial to letting toddlers communicate their needs at an earlier stage than they normally could.
Not *everything* is hype. But sometimes things are hyped unnecessarily.