Gesture Milestones as an Indicator of Language Development

Gestures are a precursor to speech and language, so looking at a child's gesture development is a good indicator of how a child’s speech and language will develop. If a child is not reaching typical gesture milestones, early intervention is crucial to help facilitate development.

Gesture Development

The three main types of gestures that develop are deictic, symbolic play schemes, and representational gestures.

9-13 Months

Around 9 to 10 months, the child will begin recognizing gestures as a communication form. This could be shaking the head, giving, pointing, or showing. These will be simple gestures at first and serve to get attention. Eventually, these simpler motions will develop into reaching, requesting, waving, etc.

At 12 months, play schemes begin to emerge. In the early stages, it could be using a toy fork in a kitchen set and pretending to eat with it. This could even be to represent that they are hungry. At this point, a child still uses an object to communicate.

After play schemes using objects, a child will use representational gestures before developing around 25 words or turning two years old. Representational gestures represent an object or action with body language. For example, a child can pretend to lick if they want a lollipop, or they will close their eyes and rest their head on the side to indicate sleep.

12-18 Months

Up to 18 months, a child will usually use just a gesture OR word, but not in combination.

Past 18 months, they have begun to develop the ability to use a combination of words and gestures. Eventually, gestures will serve more to supplement speech than as a core communication as spoken language will become the primary form of communication.

28 Months

By 28 months, beat gestures emerge. Beat gestures are not symbolic, or they don’t represent any meaning. They punctuate or emphasize what a person is saying. Beat gestures are hand movements that go along with the rhythm of the sentence.

Gestures and Language Impairment

Gestures play a critical role in the early diagnosis and prognosis of language impairments and delays. Gestures serve to supplement language development. Gestures can also serve as a form of communication for late talkers. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as it gives the child the ability to communicate still, and the use of gestures, in many cases, indicates that a late talker will grow out of the problem. A more significant issue, and an indicator of persistent language impairment, is if a child cannot use gestures and cannot imitate them.^[1]

A child’s ability to cognitively participate in play schemes indicates where a child stands regarding language impairment. Play schemes and imitating them show a child’s comprehension, semantic knowledge, and understanding of thematic relationships. It gives insight into what a child understands even though they may not express this verbally.^[2]

• In-Text Citations

  1. Capone and McGregor, p. 180.

  2. Capone and McGregor, p. 182-183.

• Sources

  Capone, N. C., and K. K. McGregor. “Gesture Development: A Review for Clinical Research Practices,” Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. 47, no. 1 (2004): 173-186. https://doi.org/10.1044/1092-4388(2004/015)

  “16 Gestures by 16 Months” First Words Project, accessed 19 October 2022, https://firstwordsproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/16-Gestures-x16-Months.pdf