Baby sign language offers a practical way for preverbal children to express feelings like happiness, sadness, anger, and fear before they can speak. The core emotion signs include happy (patting or circling palms at chest level), sad (hands pulling downward from eyes to chest with a matching facial expression), angry (a claw-shaped hand brought to the mouth with an angry face), and scared, along with related signs for tired, frustrated, love, and hurt. These signs give infants and toddlers a concrete way to communicate internal states that would otherwise emerge only as crying, tantrums, or withdrawal. Consider a 10-month-old who wakes from a nap feeling unsettled. Without signs, the parent might spend several minutes guessing whether the baby is hungry, uncomfortable, or simply grumpy.
With emotion signs, that same child can make the sign for “scared” or “sad,” giving the caregiver immediate insight into what happened. Research by Drs. Linda Acredolo and Susan Goodwyn at the University of California found that children who learned to sign during infancy had fewer tantrums and showed improved social-emotional skills characterized by more interactive relationships with parents and caregivers. This article covers the specific signs for common emotions, the research behind emotional communication in babies, when and how to introduce these signs, and practical strategies for teaching them effectively. It also addresses limitations in the research and common challenges parents face.
Table of Contents
- Why Do Emotion Signs Matter for Baby Sign Language Development?
- The Essential Emotion Signs Every Parent Should Know
- When to Introduce Emotion Signs to Your Baby
- Teaching Techniques That Make Emotion Signs Stick
- Common Challenges When Teaching Emotion Signs
- Using Emotion Signs to Support Emotional Regulation
- The Long-Term Impact of Teaching Emotion Signs Early
- Conclusion
Why Do Emotion Signs Matter for Baby Sign Language Development?
The ability to express emotions is fundamental to healthy development, yet babies typically cannot verbalize feelings until well past their first birthday. signs bridge this gap by giving children a physical vocabulary for internal experiences. According to Acredolo and Goodwyn’s research, signs allow preverbal children to express their emotions and talk about others’ feelings, which supports early social awareness. The benefits extend beyond simple communication. Their longitudinal study found that children who were signed to as infants had IQs that were 12 points higher on average than non-signing peers when followed up at age 8.
While IQ gains may stem from multiple factors, the same research showed signing babies were three months ahead in verbal skills compared to non-signers at age 2 and remained ahead at age 3. The ability to communicate emotions specifically appears to reduce frustration for both children and caregivers. However, it is worth noting that a systematic review of baby sign language research found that while benefits were reported in 13 of 17 studies, methodological weaknesses leave the evidence somewhat inconclusive. The studies often lacked control groups or relied on parent reports. What the research does consistently show is that no evidence suggests baby signing interferes with typical development or delays speech, making it a low-risk tool for families interested in early communication.
The Essential Emotion Signs Every Parent Should Know
The foundational emotion signs are straightforward to learn and teach. For “happy,” place both palms at upper-chest level facing your torso and make small circles or pat your chest while smiling. For “sad,” hold both hands with fingers outstretched above your eyes and pull them downward to chest level, matching the sign with a sad facial expression. The “angry” or “mad” sign involves making your dominant hand into a claw shape and bringing it to your mouth while making an angry facial expression.
Beyond these basics, families commonly teach signs for scared, excited, love, shy, tired, frustrated, worried, confused, hurt, nervous, and grumpy. The specific signs you prioritize should reflect your child’s experiences. A child who frequently feels overwhelmed in new situations might benefit from learning “scared” and “shy” early, while a child prone to fatigue-related meltdowns might need “tired” and “grumpy” first. One limitation to keep in mind is that signs for complex emotions like “confused” or “nervous” may not be useful until the toddler years when children can distinguish between similar feelings. Start with clear opposites like happy and sad, then expand as your child’s emotional awareness grows.
When to Introduce Emotion Signs to Your Baby
most babies begin to sign back around six to nine months when they can make intentional gestures and controlled hand movements. However, parents can start modeling signs much earlier, and many families begin around four to six months even though responses come later. The key is consistency rather than timing. For emotion signs specifically, the best approach is teaching contextually when the child first experiences the emotion. When your baby laughs at peek-a-boo, sign “happy” and say the word.
When they cry after bumping their head, sign “hurt” or “sad” while comforting them. This context helps children connect the abstract sign with the actual feeling. The “angry” sign, in particular, is best introduced during the toddler stage when children struggle with expressing intense emotions and can benefit most from having a physical outlet. A practical example: a father notices his 14-month-old daughter getting frustrated when building blocks fall over. Rather than waiting for the tantrum to escalate, he kneels down, makes the sign for “frustrated,” and says “you feel frustrated, the blocks fell.” Over several weeks, the daughter begins making the sign herself when she encounters obstacles, giving her father a chance to help before she melts down completely.
Teaching Techniques That Make Emotion Signs Stick
The most effective teaching technique comes from the deaf community: exaggerating facial expressions when making signs. Emotions are inherently tied to facial cues, so a sign for “sad” made with a neutral face will confuse a child. Match every emotion sign with an obvious corresponding expression. This also models emotional expression more broadly, helping children learn to read faces. Another important principle is teaching both positive and negative emotions for balance.
Parents sometimes focus only on signs for distress, such as hurt, scared, or angry, hoping to manage difficult moments. But signing “happy,” “excited,” and “love” reinforces positive emotional experiences and gives children vocabulary for the full range of feelings. The tradeoff is that teaching more signs requires more consistency, so families should start with three or four emotions and add more gradually rather than overwhelming themselves or their child. Repetition matters more than perfection. Research shows that parents who use signs with their babies experience less stress and frustration and are more affectionate, likely because the signing process itself encourages attentive, face-to-face interaction. Even if your signs are imprecise, the act of pausing to communicate with your child about feelings builds connection.
Common Challenges When Teaching Emotion Signs
One frequent obstacle is that children use signs inconsistently or in ways that seem incorrect. A toddler might sign “angry” when they actually feel tired, or sign “sad” whenever they want attention. This is normal and reflects the developmental process of learning to categorize internal states. Children use signs in the process of regulating their own behavior, which means they may experiment with signs to see how caregivers respond. A related challenge is introducing the “angry” sign without inadvertently reinforcing tantrums. Some parents worry that giving children a sign for anger legitimizes aggressive feelings.
The opposite tends to be true. Having a sign for anger gives children an alternative to hitting, screaming, or throwing objects. The key is responding calmly when the child uses the sign, acknowledging the feeling, and helping them work through it. If you react with alarm or immediately give in to demands when your child signs “angry,” you may reinforce the intensity rather than the communication. Finally, some children resist learning emotion signs because they find physical gestures harder than others or because they are already developing verbal skills. Not every child needs or wants to sign, and pushing too hard can create negative associations. If your child shows no interest after several months of consistent modeling, they may simply prefer other communication methods.
Using Emotion Signs to Support Emotional Regulation
Beyond communication, emotion signs serve as tools for self-regulation. When a child makes the sign for “frustrated” or “scared,” the physical act itself can have a calming effect by channeling the feeling into controlled movement. This mirrors techniques used in therapy for older children and adults, where naming and externalizing emotions helps manage them.
For example, a preschool teacher notices that a three-year-old who learned baby sign language as an infant still uses the “calm down” sign (not explicitly an emotion sign but often taught alongside them) when transitioning between activities. The physical motion has become a self-soothing habit. This illustrates how early signing can create lasting tools for emotional management, though individual results vary widely.
The Long-Term Impact of Teaching Emotion Signs Early
The longitudinal research from Acredolo and Goodwyn suggests that benefits from baby sign language extend beyond the signing period itself. The children in their study who signed as infants showed advantages in language and cognitive measures years later, though isolating signing as the sole cause is difficult. What seems clear is that the enhanced parent-child interaction during the signing months creates a foundation for ongoing communication about emotions.
As children develop verbal skills, most naturally phase out signs, though some continue using them in specific situations or maintain bilingual abilities if exposed to formal sign language. The emotional vocabulary learned through signs often transfers to spoken words, giving children a head start in articulating feelings. For families who invest in teaching emotion signs, the payoff may be not just fewer tantrums during toddlerhood but children who are more comfortable discussing feelings throughout childhood.
Conclusion
Teaching baby sign language signs for emotions gives preverbal children a way to communicate happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and other feelings before they can speak. The core signs are simple to learn: happy involves patting or circling at the chest, sad uses a downward pulling motion from the eyes, and angry employs a claw hand near the mouth with matching facial expressions. Research supports benefits including reduced tantrums, improved social-emotional skills, and enhanced verbal development, though the evidence base has some methodological limitations.
The practical approach is to start modeling emotion signs around six months, teach contextually when emotions arise naturally, exaggerate facial expressions, and balance positive and negative emotion vocabulary. Most children begin signing back between six and nine months, with more complex emotion signs becoming useful during the toddler years. For parents feeling overwhelmed, starting with just happy, sad, and one distress sign like hurt or scared provides a foundation to build on gradually.