Gregory smiles, drools and burbles happily. He seems more interested in the bag of Animal Crackers at his feet.

It could be a year before Gregory, a normal, healthy 4-month-old, can speak, but until then, his mother hopes to get a jump-start on communicating with her baby through sign language, the language of the deaf.

Neither Tricia Campbell nor her son is deaf.

Like others around the world, the Bangor mother is part of a growing movement of parents and day care centers teaching hearing babies simple gestures, or signs, to communicate before they can talk. The baby sign language trend has been gaining broader exposure in recent years. The movie, ''Meet the Fockers,'' where Robert De Niro's character teaches his young grandson to sign, helped propel it into the mainstream. And it got a boost when actress and new mom Debra Messing enthused about teaching sign language to her 10-month-old son.

Babies typically begin to talk between 12 and 15 months, but some researchers say babies can grasp sign language and communicate with it before they learn how to speak.

''We know they are learning language faster than they are able to show you with their speech production because that system takes a long time to develop,'' says Gerald McRoberts, director of developmental research at the Haskins Laboratories, a private, non-profit research institute on speech and language.

''They are understanding words before they are able to say them. Somewhere around 16 to 18 months, they might say 50 words but understand 200, so they're way ahead. They understand short sentences well,'' McRoberts says.

Studies have shown deaf children learn to use sign language earlier than hearing children learn to speak meaningfully.

As to whether hearing babies can communicate earlier with sign language, McRoberts says, ''I think that's still to be determined. It may. It may not. I'm very interested in that very question, and we're just starting a few studies here.''

Ling Chou, the instructor of the non-credit Baby Signs workshop at Northampton and Lehigh Carbon Community colleges, has no reservations about teaching sign language to hearing babies. Chou says it kick-started her son James' ability to communicate his needs and observations before he was physically able to talk.

''He signed 'milk' to me when I was nursing him at 11 months. It was amazing. So he was actually expressing himself,'' Chou says.

When he was 15 months old, James signed that his bath water was too hot, even though he could not say it.

''I knew so many boys between 12 and 18 months who couldn't express themselves and ended up getting frustrated. We skipped a lot of that. I feel it's been wonderful for me. He could really express himself,'' Chou says.

She believes it can help deepen the bonds between parent and baby. And besides easing frustration, Chou says baby sign language is fun and easy to learn.

Baby Signs, which Chou teaches, is one of the leading sign language systems created 20 years ago by psychology professors Linda Acredolo and Susan W. Goodwyn. The pair, who run the Baby Signs Institute, have done extensive research and wrote the bestselling book, ''Baby Signs: How To Talk With Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk.''

While the baby sign language trend has proliferated around the world, some parents wonder whether sign language delays speech.

''What we found was exactly the opposite,'' says Acredolo, who conducted a study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, that asked that question.

By Wendy Solomon
http://www.mcall.com/entertainment/all-babysigns0407,0,3967924.story