Lead
"Communicate before words arrive." "Higher IQ." "Accelerated language development." The marketing language surrounding baby signs: simplified hand gestures (often borrowed from sign languages) taught to preverbal infants so they can communicate needs like "milk," "more," or "all done" before they can speak — simplified gesture systems taught to preverbal infants — has grown considerably more ambitious over the past two decades.
The lived experience of many families who try it is warmly positive. The "milk" sign making morning routines a little easier to read; the "more" sign clarifying how much more puree is wanted. These small functional wins are real.
The problem is a large gap between these modest practical successes and the sweeping claims about accelerated language development and elevated intelligence. This article is not an argument against baby signs, nor a promotion of them. It is an attempt to set out, as steadily as possible, what the meta-analyses and systematic reviews say — and what they deliberately do not say.