GESTURES ARE IMPORTANT FOR LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

GESTURES ARE IMPORTANT FOR LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

 

Gestures provide our babies and toddlers with the means of expressing themselves before they are able to verbalize. And, when they use a gesture, we (the listeners) respond by saying something about what they have communicated, providing language they can learn from!

These gestures can be modeled in everyday routines and play!

Here are some specific strategies to use to build early gestures in your little one:

 

. Model during daily activities such as: waving hi & bye, knocking on a door, shaking your head no while saying the word, nodding for yes, etc

 

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. Use songs and fingerplays to model gestures and have your little one imitate them!

 

 

. Always pair a word with a gesture! For example, whenever your little one claps with excitement, you can pair it with, “Yay!”

 

 

 

 

. Acknowledge what your child is communicating with their gesture to validate what they are expressing, which will encourage them to continue to communicate with you!

        

. Repeat over & over- our babies and toddlers learn from consistent modeling and exposure, so keep doing it over and over!

While their sweet little gestures are super cute, they’re also super meaningful in terms of baby language development. Gesture imitation plays an evocative role in developing language and social skills in children. Who knew all that? Well now you do,so help your infants communicate better.

 

Ayushi Lakhotia Patania (Educator)