SAN DIEGO -- As bubbles float by and pop, a baby closes her hands and brings her fingertips together -- telling her teacher she wants "more." The teacher responds by twisting her open hands, and saying "all gone."

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The baby hasn't learned to speak yet. But with the help of sign language, she can communicate her wants (more bubbles) and needs to the adults around her.

"At meal time, it's wonderful," says Michelle, who has a 16-month old daughter, Kelsey. "When she wants a drink, when she wants to eat, when she wants to sleep -- it just has alleviated a lot of the hassle of guessing."

Kelsey learned the gestures in a Baby Sign class, offered by Children's Hospital at its Solana Beach satellite. She and her mother worked with Speech Language Pathologist, Catherine Brown, to develop easy signs that communicate Kelsey's basic needs.

"(We're) using them in a way that they're placeholders until the word comes," says Brown. She says most children are ready to begin communicating between the ages of eight and 16-months. But many become frustrated with their efforts to speak.

Michelle is familiar with that frustration. She has an older son, and says she remembers many fits when he couldn't get across what he needed.

So when the opportunity to learn baby sign language came available, she jumped at it. She says Kelsey began using the signs for "eat" and "more" within two weeks of the first class.

Now, Kelsey can tell her mother when she wants to go outside to play, "instead of kind of banging on it and crying until you've kind of guessed that."

Brown says sign language really helps families with older babies who are slow to talk.

"The parents learn how to promote communication at home," says Brown. "And they're also finding out they understand their babies more. They're able to read their babies and really get a good handle on what their babies are thinking."

In the past, many parents worried the use of sign language would delay verbal communication. But Brown says, 20 years of research refutes that concern. "What we're finding is actually they develop language faster by doing this," she says.

The parent and teacher make up many of the gestures, based on the child's interests and the ease of the gesture. But there are standards, such as "eat," "drink," "yes" and "no."

"My favorite gestures are "more" and "all gone," because that gets parents through a lot of different situations," says Brown.

The free Baby Sign class is funded by a grant from the First 5 Commission of San Diego, which uses cigarette tax money to improve the lives of children under the age of five.

It's available to North County families through the Children's Care Connection (C3) Program. For more information, call Children's Hospital at (877) 8C3-KIDS, or go to their Web site.