07/08/2025
✨ What Counts as a Gestalt? ✨
After a little tumble, a parent stated that her child quietly said, “Five little monkeys jumping on the bed…” That’s a gestalt moment.
💬 A gestalt is any chunk of language a child has heard and found meaningful. It’s:
💗Spontaneously used
💗Intonation rich: kids often say it just like they heard it, matching the melody (tune) 🎶and feel.
💗Sometimes jumbled or unintelligible, but rich in rhythm and 🎶 intonation !
💗Gestalts can be short or long. It might be just one word like “car!”used every time the child sees a car, plays with toy cars or even when they want to go somewhere! For the child, “car” holds a bigger meaning than just the object, it’s connected to experiences, ahd feelings.
Examples of gestalts:
💡From songs or rhymes: “Do you wanna build a snowman? Come on, let’s go and play ☃️ “
💡From shows: “To infinity and beyond!”
💡From books: “I will huff, I will puff, I will blow the house down”
💡From parents: “Time for dinner!”
💡From peers: “Time to go”
🔹What you can do:
Model language that can become a meaningful gestalt for them.
We tune in to their interests, what they might be trying to say, and choose words that feel natural in the moment.
