About Us

The Beginning

In 1982, Dr. Linda Acredolo and Dr. Susan Goodwyn discovered that babies were spontaneously using simple gestures to represent words they were not yet able to say. They might sniff for "flower," pant for "dog," or flap their arms for "bird." What would happen, Dr. Acredolo and Dr. Goodwyn wondered, if parents just helped the process along?

Thus began a major breakthrough in infant-parent communication called the Baby Signs^® Program - a natural baby sign language that allows babies and their parents to use simple signs to communicate important things - like being hungry or thirsty, hot or cold, afraid or sad - often a full year before babies could otherwise speak.

Through two decades of research, much of it funded by the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Acredolo and Dr. Goodwyn have demonstrated that their Baby Signs Program has dramatic benefits, including decreasing frustration for babies and parents, enriching the parent-child bond, boosting emotional development, helping babies talk sooner- even raising IQ.

Their ground-breaking book, Baby Signs: How to Talk to Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk, was published in 1996 and quickly became a bestseller (over 500,000 copies sold in the U.S. alone and has been translated into 14 foreign languages). The Baby Signs Program has been featured on national television, including the Oprah Winfrey Show, NBC Today, ABC 20/20, Dateline NBC, CBS Morning Show, ABC Good Morning America, and NBC Nightly News. Articles about the Baby Signs Program have also appeared in leading newspapers, and in national magazines including Newsweek,US News and World Report, Child, Parents, and Parenting.

The Baby Signs^® Program Comes to Canada

Lisa Smith, Director of Baby Signs Canada, began her journey with the Baby Signs^® Program when her oldest daughter was just 10 months old. She stumbled across the book Baby Signs: How to Talk With Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk in the summer of 2000. She has since used the Baby Signs^® program with her own children and has witnessed the joy and pleasure as well as the intimate bonds that can develop within families as a result of using baby friendly sign language.

After using the Baby Signs^® Program with her two oldest daughters, Lisa had the opportunity in February 2003 to be one of the first 15 Baby Signs^® Instructors world wide...and the only one in Canada for 1 1/2 years. During the summer of 2004 she became the Independent District Manager for Canada and began training and supporting instructors throughout all of Canada. In November 2004, she became the official Distributor of Baby Signs^® Products to make them more readily available to all Canadians. And finally, in July 2005, Lisa became the Director of Baby Signs Canada to oversee all growth and development in Canada.

Lisa graduated from the University of Alberta in 1999 with a Degree in Recreation Administration specializing in Special Populations. She has worked with autistic children and currently works with and teaches children ages 3-5 in her church. As her sister once put it: "You are really into kids, aren't you?" Lisa responds with a resounding "YES!"