For the past 18 months, she has taught more than 150 families in the Silicon Valley an alternative way of communicating with their young children—American Sign Language.

Yet these are not typical sign-language classes, because those attending Gustavson's classes are not hearing impaired. Her primary students are families with children between the ages of 6 and 18 months old. She is presently teaching in Saratoga and Los Altos Hills and at Blossom Birth Services in Palo Alto.

Gustavson says sign language can be a useful way for young babies who traditionally talk to parents by crying to instead use signing as a way to express that they are tired, hungry or in pain.

Her idea for the classes began at home. Gustavson taught her three-year-old son, Seth Berlin, to sign when he was 7 months old after watching her sister teach one of her older children. By the time he was 9 months old, he began to respond by signing back to her—his first sign was milk.

But she noticed that other parents would look at her strangely for communicating with her son in this manner.

"One of the reasons I wanted to teach these classes was because I didn't know anyone else who was doing this," she says. "But now, the word has really spread and everyone seems to know about it."

Gustavson, 36, starts her class by teaching parents such basic signs such as those for milk, changing diapers, wanting more of something such as water and indicating pain.

"These are just a few useful words, but they can significantly reduce the frustrations of both parents and babies," she says.

To date, her son knows about 150 to 200 signs, but she says the beauty of her classes is the ability to take what is learned and incorporate it at home to the extent that each family chooses.

She says some parents are focused on the basic signs that she teaches, while others go full throttle with their children and will communicate almost entirely through signs.

Although Gustavson's son can easily verbally communicate with his mother, she says that the signs still are useful in certain situations. When Seth becomes upset or irritable, sometimes he won't verbally tell Gustavson what is bothering him but he will sign it to her.

And, some parents, especially those with children approaching the "terrible 2s" are hoping that their toddlers will use sign language to vent their frustrations instead of verbally acting up.

"Many of the parents who come to take my classes have really young babies, but see older ones and want to avoid some of the verbal tantrums in the years to come," she says.

Willow Glen residents Kris and Rick Andrakin have slowly tried to teach a couple basic signs to their five-month-old twins, Olivia and Sophia. But, Kris acknowledges, the twin girls are still too young to begin to absorb what she is teaching them. In fact, the couple's 4-year-old daughter, Megan, has had more fun picking up sign language from watching her parents practice it, and uses it for fun around the house.

Kris is hoping to teach her twins some rudimentary signs so when Sophia and Olivia become toddlers and enter the dreaded "terrible 2s" they might have a quieter way to express their frustrations. The couple already has a toddler, Lauren, in the midst of her "terrible 2s" period, and at the moment the toddler has no interest in learning any sign language from her parents.

The couple both agree that they would like to try and teach Sophia and Olivia signs for basic necessities like milk, food and diaper change, but both work full time, which won't leave too much time to teach and reinforce the silent language to the babies.

Audra Lemke, 35, decided to teach her baby, Melissa, sign language when she saw her friend's 1-year-old daughter communicate with her parents through signing.

"I will never forget the girl, as a very young toddler, asking the question 'where is the dog?' by signing where and speaking the word dog," Lemke says. "We saw how signing enriched the communication between her and her parents and how her language skills develop in a very advanced way. We also saw how much happier she appeared than other babies at her age."

Lemke learns sign language from books, including Sign with Your Baby by author Joseph Garcia She took a six-week-long course from Gustavson when Melissa was about 6 months old.

Garcia is the trendsetter for teaching sign languages to hearing babies. He started studying the benefits of sign language while researching early childhood development in 1985.

He was inspired when he visited the family of a deaf friend and saw a 10-month-old baby communicate with his deaf parents in American Sign Language.

During his research, he discovered that hearing children begin replicating signs as early as 8 months old, with some exceptional children beginning as early as 6 months old.

He found that infants may lack the motor skills necessary to produce spoken language but don't lack the conceptual ability to understand and use language.

Garcia's book Sign with Your Baby became a must-read for parents who want to teach sign language to their children. Garcia also inspired Northlight Communications, a multinational and multimillion-dollar business, to publish educational materials about baby sign language.

"When my company first published Joseph Garcia's book Sign with Your Baby in 1999, the book stayed as Amazon's best-selling parenting title for six months." says Bob Tarcea, president of Seattle-based Northlight Communications.

Gustavson says many of the parents who attend one of her classes are initially skeptical that using sign language with their baby will actually work effectively. But she says that usually after that first class, parents come around pretty quickly, because she tries to address any misconceptions they might have.

"The most frequently asked question I get from parents is if teaching babies sign language will cause speech delay. The answer is no," Gustavson says.

She adds, "Actually, signing babies tend to have a better grasp of grammar, syntax and vocabulary than children of the same age."

Gustavson says learning sign language is no different from learning spoken language.

"When children first say water, they don't say water. They say wawa. The mother has to keep saying water until the child can finally say water," Gustavson says. "The same is true with sign language."

Gustavson says to encourage their babies, parents should not correct their children when their children make an inaccurate sign. "Don't mess with their hands. Don't get frustrated when the babies get the signs wrong. Just keep responding to them. Eventually it will come around," she says. "Learning should be fun."

Sign-language resources: For Sign2me, visit http://www.sign2me.com. For more information about Secure Beginnings, contact Mika Gustavson at 408.626.8444 or go to http://www.securebegin.com.