Want to know what your baby is thinking? That’s what prompted Kimora Lee Simmons to teach her son, Kenzo, sign language.”We’ve been teaching him!” the 35-year-old said during a Sept. 1 live Ustream broadcast. As the 1-year-old signed the word please while asking for a sip of his mom’s drink, Kimora explained, “I think it’s so important [because] a baby can say what he wants… food, no, yes, thank you, please — it helps with communication so you don’t have, like, screaming crazy kids.”

We spoke to pediatric expert Dr. Fred Bomback, who thinks what Kimora is doing is fabulous! “I think it’s a good idea,” says the clinical professor of pediatrics at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. “It’s great to be fluent in two languages. You can learn two different ways of solving a problem. They learn that there is more than one way of doing something.”

“I encourage a family to have their kids learn as many languages as possible,” Dr. Bomback continues. “And sign is another language.”

And age doesn’t matter. “I think you can do it even before the age of one — 10 months of age is fine,” says Dr. Bomback. “Kids learn language right after birth. You can start to teach them somewhere between 9 and 12 months.”

With sign language, “even if they don’t speak that way, their understanding of what’s being communicated to them is great,” Dr. Bomback adds. “They can combine languages and it doesn’t inhibit anything. It’s only positive. Even in kids who have learning disabilities, I would encourage them to learn more than one language.”

Kudos to Kimora! It sounds like she’s got a great thing going for her little boy. He’s going to be a multitalented individual when he grows up, that’s for sure!

- Lindsey DiMattina