11/06/2023
Research shows that children who use more gestures from 9 to 16 months have larger expressive vocabularies two years later! Before your child starts to produce words to communicate, we see them begin to use a variety of gestures. Thus, gestures are an important stepping stone or prelinguistic skill in language development.
By 16 months, we expect children to use 16 different gestures. Here are the different gestures we expect:
9 months: Give, Shake Head No
10 months: Reach, Raise Arms
11 months: Show, Wave Hi/Bye
12 months: Open-Hand Point and Tap to show interest in something
13 months: Clap, Blow a Kiss
14 months: Index Finger Point, “Shhh” Gesture
15 months: Head Nod Yes, Thumbs Up, Hand Up in front of face for stinky
16 months: Other symbolic gestures, such as high five, or shrug for “I don’t know”
Although gestures don’t start to emerge until 8-9 months, we can start to model and introduce them sooner. When modeling gestures with your child, it is important to pair a word with the gesture you are using. For example, if you…
👏Clap, say “Yay!”
👋Wave, say “Hi or “Bye”
💋Blow a Kiss, say “Mwah” or “Kiss”
✋High five, say “Good Job” or “Five”
👉Point, say “Look!” or “I want ____”
🚫Shake Head No, say “No!”
👍Nod Head Yes, say “Yes!”
🙌Put Arms Up, say “Up!”
You can incorporate modeling more gestures throughout your daily routines with your child. For example, you can model the pointing gesture when you are out on a walk, point out your surroundings and label what you see. While reading a book, you can model the pointing gesture by showing and labeling the pictures. If something falls down you can model the gesture and say “uh oh!” Singing songs that have gestures are also a great way to work on gesture imitation and also encourage language development with your child. For example, “The Wheels on the Bus,” “If You’re Happy and You Know It” or “Head and Shoulders.”
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