High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Specialized sign language is sometimes used to communicate with infants and toddlers. While infants and toddlers have a desire to communicate their needs and wishes, they lack the ability to do so clearly because the production of speech lags behind cognitive ability in the first months and years of life. Proponents of baby sign language say that this gap between desire to communicate and ability often leads to frustration and tantrums. However, since hand-eye coordination develops sooner than acquisition of verbal skills, infants can learn simple signs for common words such as "eat", "sleep", "more", "hug", "play", "cookie", "teddy bear", before they are able to produce understandable speech.