Our studio guest is Dr. Andreas Wiefel of the Department of Child Psychiatry at Charité Hospital BerlinDW-TV: Being a parent sure has become pretty complicated in today’s world. Andreas Wiefel, does teaching babies sign language impede or enhance language skills? Andreas Wiefel: Well, I would say of course, there is a result of teaching babies signs, but the question is whether it's very sensible for communication. Because communication process is more a process than having a specific result.   OK, so then how do you think this idea originated? I think it has to do with people's wish to have quicker results and to have more facts on paper, for instance, they want to know exactly what the baby means, and they don't have the patience to wait on what is going on in the process to negotiate, "what do we want to do?" and "what do you want from me?" and "what do I want from you?" This is like a distortion. And earlier you told me Americans have a saying about this, like a rule. Yes, the opposite would be, for instance - it's a concept to get along with infants and small children - it's called "watch, wait and wonder." Which is completely different, because it's open for results and we don't have to come to a result as quickly as possible for "what do you want?" But it's very much open. OK, so do you think that this is a passing fad, or do you think this sign language with babies has something of substance that will take hold? Well, as I said before, I hope, and I do think it's a passing fad, because I think the intuitive desires of mankind with their babies is different. It's not closed, it's open. Now in your experience, have you seen situations in which communication between the parent and the child has been abnormal? Yes, of course, this is sort of my everyday work in the infant consultation which we have in our clinic. And, by the way, we would never try to give people such things like having more exact ideas of the si...