I've been reading a bit about families who have used baby sign language to communicate with the children they adopt from abroad, and I think it can be a useful tool to help you bridge the language gap. There was a story about one family who used it with the children that they adopted from Russia in a Michigan newspaper earlier this month.

Baby sign, as it is sometimes called, is about two decades old. The basic idea behind it is that learning to speak is hard work, and when babies can't coordinate all the muscle and breathing power they need to say what they want to say, it leads to frustration. And frustration leads to temper tantrums.

Even as someone who is not a speech professional I can see some validity to this. For the first three months after my little guy got home from Sakhalin Island a few months short of his fifth birthday, he communicated solely in baby Russian. I pretended I understood his every word, which was nearly impossible because his articulation was garbled by the number of teeth he was missing. But as he began to switch into English, the temper tantrums grew. He clearly felt that he was saying these new sounds the way they should be said, and I should be understanding him. Thankfully, as his permanent teeth came in, his articulation got better and his temper tantrums greatly lessened.

I didn't use sign language with him, though I know a bit of it because we use it in Sunday school. Why? I was just more focused on building age-appropriate vocabulary, teaching him to say "train" instead of the Russian equivalent for "choo-choo". I talk with him--and his older brother--almost non-stop, and I'll pat myself on the back briefly and say that his vocabulary now is almost as good as his peers who have been speaking English their whole lives. And even better when it comes to aviation terminology, since that is clearly where his heart lies.

There are several companies that have introduced baby sign language products. I haven't used any of them, so I can't vouch for their effectiveness. But if you want to learn more, try Sign2Me or Baby Signs. There is also a TV show about it, Signing Time, which airs on some Public Television stations around the U.S.. You can check if it is in your area here. Stanford University has apparently done some research into Russian sign language and has posted videos of common signs here.

Have you used sign language with the children you have adopted from Russia? I'd love to hear about it.