#5. The importance of gestures

June 19, 2017 Liz Donnelly

What are gestures and why are they important?

Gestures are movements of the head, hands, arms and body that send a message – actions like pointing, waving and nodding. From those beautiful early smiles in the first few months to the nine month old pointing at the toy they want Mama to fetch, gestures are the first exciting outward signs that babies are on the path to language.

Gestures are an important way babies and young children deliberately communicate with caregivers to make themselves understood. Early gestures can be used to make a request (‘give me that’), to show something (‘look at that’) or to ask a question (‘what is that?’). Later the gestures expand to represent things (like flapping arms to indicate a ‘bird flying’). Gestures are key indicators that reveal to speech language experts where a baby is at in their language development, because gestures and language stem from the same area of the brain - whereas motor movements (which are also important for language development) originate from a different area.

Gestures used at 14 months are an accurate predictor of vocabulary at 42 months!

It all begins with imitation. At around 6 months old, babies start to imitate their caregiver’s movements (and words too, but this post in our language series is focussing on movements). They’re practicing reaching, arm sweeps, and head turns that they will use very deliberately later on to get their message across.

Once they master the movements, over the next few months babies will gesture to communicate, performing actions like opening and shutting their hand when they want to pick something up, hiding their face, playing ‘peek-a-boo’, wiggling, kicking, raising their arms to be picked up, and holding a toy out for their caregiver to look at. (At first they won’t want to let the toy go, but later they will give it to their caregivers and take it back off you – hours of fun!) They also start doing cute clever things like bringing a cup up towards their mouth or holding a phone to their ear. In a way, they are actually naming things through these gestures. Babies may even create their own gestures that mean specific things to them, for example pointing to their mouth to eat.

As babies reach around 8-9 months of age, they move from using gestures silently to starting to make deliberate sounds with gestures, then much later on, at around 18 months, they will use a recognisable word with the gesture. The words replace the gestures eventually, but not completely - we all gesture throughout our lives to add emphasis and meaning to what we’re saying.

Communicating with Intent

When babies do start to deliberately use gestures (at around 8 months old) they reveal that they know they might be able to make something happen. Expert Robert E. Owens Jr calls this the ‘emergence of intentional communication’. They’re starting to use forward thinking skills (looking beyond the ‘now’ to make something happen in the future) which is really quite sophisticated in ones so young!

It is clear when a baby starts to gesture with an intention to get their message across, because they do a combination of three things:

They make eye contact with the caregiver.
They make a sound to signal they want something.
They will try persistently to communicate, repeating or changing their gestures to make themselves understood.

Take the example of a baby looking at a caregiver, then touching them then waving or pointing at a toy they want. This is an amazing feat – baby is showing that they understand communication is a two-way street by using a communication technique (called ‘joint reference’) that shows they know that two (or more) people can focus on the same thing at the same time. This is a vital step towards language because as discussed in '6-12 months. Language starting to land' it’s within the framework of focussing on something together that caregivers teach all those specific words and phrases to their babies. And it all starts with the ‘gazing’ gesture!

Pointing

Pointing is the most common gesture produced at ten months of age.* Babies might use the whole hand to point or stretch one finger out – generally they do the most efficient gesture to achieve the result they want. Clever! Of interest here too is that if the caregiver doesn’t respond positively to the point (by reacting or showing that they understand) babies won’t bother to point as much next time. Makes sense really, they’re learning so much during these months that if what they try doesn’t work they will quickly move on to trying something else. Some theorists are also convinced that pointing is a child’s attempt to influence their caregiver in a social way.

Here’s a great video from Before their first words outlining the development of the pointing gesture.

Reaching

Reaching is also a very significant gesture. A baby will make eye contact, reach towards something and may make a noise that tells their caregiver that they want that thing. So this gesture isn’t a ‘reach’ at all, rather a request! Officially to an expert, ‘requesting’ is when a baby leans forward and reaches his or her arms out towards the thing they want or when they make a ‘give to me’ gesture (often accompanied by the noise they make when they want something).

Later on, tantrums also include a variety of communicative gestures!

Between 18-21 months there is huge burst of language development as the child learns lots of new words (more on this later in our language series). Caregivers can set children up for huge learning during these months by encouraging each new gesture as babies master them. Celebrate each point, each reach, each little opening and shutting fist, because they are vital in baby's development of language!

This is broad general development information, so don’t stress if your baby is doing or not doing these things - every personality is different and each baby creates their own individual journey to language. Do however, seek professional help if you have any concerns.

This post is part of the eardrops blog language series. Check out our toddler language overview next, or find out about newborn communication here and language development in 6-12 month olds here.

Waving hello, Liz xx

Next up:

#3. 6-12 months and language

#6. Toddler language 12-24 months

#7 2-3 year olds and language

Dr Newbury's research

Information for the Eardrops blog language series was guided and overseen by Dr Jayne Newbury, Researcher in Child Language (University of Canterbury), with the comprehensive information in Language Development: An Introduction by Robert E. Owens, Jr. (2015). This post was written by Liz Donnelly, creator of Eardrops, audio stories that help develop listening skills and improve everyday language in young children.

* This fact from here

#4. The importance of primary caregivers

June 12, 2017 Liz Donnelly

Mamas and Papas - your work is vital!

Primary caregivers work hard every day feeding, washing, dressing and helping their beautiful babies sleep. These tasks are crucial for baby’s physical survival. Mums, Dads and other caregivers also perform another equally important set of tasks many times each day – those that are linked more with baby’s emotional survival.

The primary caregivers play a pivotal role in guiding the child’s language development. They set the framework for baby to learn in, creating space for moments to connect. They notice when the child is alert and wants to interact, they stop when baby has had enough and use simple language in conversations so baby can learn the basic sounds and patterns of their native language (its not hard because babies are sooo cute, right?!)

Although the bulk of people learn language through their ears, this is not just about hearing – babies who are deaf meet all the linguistic milestones if their caregivers respond appropriately and engage in sign language from the start.

Caregivers build trust

When caregivers respond in a timely way to their young baby’s cries, the child learns that someone will be there when they need help. Mummy notices and helps when baby is hungry, Daddy sees when baby is tired, big sister spots that baby wants to play, Grandma notices when baby needs an extra cuddle. This communication needs to be established between the child and the primary caregivers long before language can develop. Cuddles, smiles, responding quickly to cries, coos and giggles, playing face-to-face and even simply maintaining eye contact are all examples of the wonderful dialogue that takes place between carers and babies.

A nine month old will be more motivated to communicate if they’ve been responded to appropriately by caregivers in the early days.

Rituals around feeding, sleeping and playtime are also important for a newborn baby’s later language development. These predictable events create a kind of script or language ‘map’ that baby learns, and from here can start to notice patterns in the words and phrases the caregivers are using in and around each routine. Later, singing songs and nursery rhymes and playing simple games is important too because of the repeated language patterns throughout (another round of 'peek-a-boo', pronto!)

Caregivers take turns

Learning that conversations involve two or more participants taking turns to speak is a major step in a child’s language journey. Caregivers teach babies to take turns by acting as if they expect baby to respond to what they’ve just said - by leaving a natural pause to give baby space to gaze, smile, coo, move their hand, or vocalise back. They also show respect for the baby’s turn by staying quiet for longer than in an adult conversation, then when the baby responds, they act like they understand what baby meant.

Being treated as if they are a meaningful part of the conversation is a key motivator for babies to try and communicate in any way they can.

Caregivers respond consistently

From about 6 months old, babies deliberately seek out opportunities to communicate using eye contact, gestures, and more comprehensive vocalisations. Consistent responses from caregivers are even more important now because they deepen those lines of communication and keep the baby wanting to try and communicate. When parents don’t respond immediately some babies will double their efforts – cooing louder or waving their arms about - experts note the babies who push back the hardest at this stage understand more than their peers do when they get to 13 months.

image to illustrate joint attention: children with guinea pig

Caregivers may also notice around 6 months that the baby wants to examine things together. When they develop the ability to focus on an object alongside a caregiver and understand that both are referring to that object (‘joint attention’) they take a huge step forward in terms of their language. This is so important for language because it is within the framework of shared focussed experience that baby actually starts to learn specific patterns, words, and phrases. Both adult and child send out the signals for joint attention. The caregivers might stop and point to something or shake a toy to direct baby’s to it; they might sit baby up or hold a toy at the right height. Baby might show interest in something which prompts the caregiver to stop and explore it (usually with a running commentary about it too). Parents that consistently focus with their child in this way are helping their child’s language so much, especially if they do it when the child is around 9 months. The child has better language comprehension later. (Amazing huh?!)

Caregivers use 'IDS'

A child must hear speech over and over again before they start to learn the language. There is a particular way that caregivers talk with young babies that really helps their learning; where we use a squeaky high voice, exaggerated pitch and tones, gestures, gazes, and facial expressions, and leave long pauses to include baby in each conversation. People all round the world do this with babies, no matter the language they are speaking – this is programmed into us! Experts call this ‘Infant Directed Speech’ (IDS).

IDS is different from regular speech because the adults speak slowly and in short simple sentences, we talk about what’s going on in the immediate environment (nothing too abstract or theoretical), we only use a few words and repeat these throughout the conversation. And although we’re not usually aware of it, we only use a few different sounds in each conversation too. Squeaky exaggerated speech creates the conditions to have conversations with our preschoolers later, and babies of 9 months whose carers speak in short sentences to them have bigger vocabularies at 18 months.

Caregivers, every hug, smile, giggle, pause, silly face and descriptive conversation you have with your baby is banking language skills they will soon be using to converse with you. What you do is so vital.

Experience of language is vital during the whole of the first year, as a lack of exposure can have a seriously negative effect on a baby’s later language development. As a caregiver, you can do so much to help your child with their language. Thank you and keep up the good work!

This is the fourth post in our language series. Next up we see why gestures are so important for babies' language.

Ngā Manaākitanga (with best wishes), Liz xx

Next up:

#3. 6-12 months and language

#6 12-24 months and language

#7 2-3 year olds and language

Dr Newbury's research

#3. 6-12 months. Language starting to land!

June 6, 2017 Liz Donnelly

“ba-ba-ba-ba-da-da-da-ba-da-mm-mum-mm” tell us a story baby!

Number three in the eardrops language series considers language development during the second half of baby’s first year. This is another period of truly impressive learning. Just like in the newborn days, babies are working hard during these months building the foundations of language, and it is all happening in parallel with many amazing physical accomplishments.

The number of words an infant hears during their first twelve months has a direct effect on how quickly they learn language later in the preschool years. So keep talking as often as you can with your baby because these early experiences with language are crucial to activate the brain, firing those neurons up. Babies contribute to their learning by consciously observing, exploring, experimenting, and seeking information as best they can.

This first year can be so intense and it is helpful to have a basic understanding of how your little one is working on their language. This is broad general development information, so don’t stress if your baby is doing or not doing these things - every personality is different and each baby creates their own individual journey to language.

Bravo baby!

In amongst all the clever things they are doing (like crawling and learning to eat solids), babies reach two significant and exciting milestones in their language development between six and twelve months.

They start to deliberately try and communicate with caregivers
They start to pair sounds with meaning

Communicating on purpose

About now, babies start to experience success when they try and communicate. Maybe they wave towards a toy and their caregiver passes it to them, maybe they create a sound that caregiver understands the meaning of, maybe they lift their arms wanting to be picked up and hey presto they get picked up. Whatever the event, the fact that they did an action with an intended meaning that was understood by someone else is huge! Each time this happens - when they communicate what they want successfully, babies are motivated to try and communicate even more.

Because they have developed the ability to focus on an object alongside a caregiver and understand that both are referring to that object (‘joint attention’) the framework is now in place for baby to initiate ‘conversations’ about toys and objects they can hear, see, and touch. The baby's growing knowledge during these months that an object or person still exists even if it’s out of sight (called ‘object permanence’) is also an important developmental step. Try hiding a toy under a blanket and see if your baby looks for it. Hours of fun!

Infant Directed Speech (IDS - that simple, repetitive, high pitched style of talking we automatically do with babies, as defined in our newborn communication discussion) really helps children learn language, and it subtly changes once babies get to 6 months old. Without really being aware of it, caregivers start providing more information, describing objects and toys very clearly using short sentences that only include one or two ideas ("here's kitty"). They also introduce slightly harder concepts ("pat the cat"), and use more sounds within sentences ("you pat the cat").

Babies of 9 months whose carers speak in short IDS sentences to them have bigger vocabularies at 18 months than those who haven't been exposed to this style of speaking.

Imitation

It is really important during these months that babies are given lots of chances to observe what's going on. One of the main ways they learn is by imitating their caregivers. They’ve been imitating facial expressions since day one but now, after they get to 6 months, they will start to imitate hand movements too. The more that caregivers talk with baby the more they will try and imitate them and they love it when people imitate them back (this helps them deepen their understanding of conversations and how we have to take turns). More on imitation here.

Gestures

Building on the wonderful smiling, head turning and gazing they’ve been doing for months, babies now learn more complex gestures like waving, nodding, shaking their head to say ‘no’, stretching arms up and pointing. When babies start making these gestures they are showing caregivers that they are thinking strategically – they are developing the ability to plan and co-ordinate their actions to achieve a goal. Your baby might touch you to get your attention, then look, reach or point to something then look back at you – silently asking you to get it for them. They might also make a sound and point at something but usually the vocalisation is only added after a couple of months of quiet gesturing. (Because they are so vital in the language journey we take a more detailed look at gestures here.)

Sounds

Babies have been making sounds to communicate their needs for months already but now their sounds develop and become more complex. It is so cute when they start to ‘babble’ in lovely long streams of gibberish like ‘bibibibibi’ ‘mamamama’ ‘bidibidibidi’. Early babbling sounds the same regardless of the language being spoken in the home, but over time these sounds become more tuned to the native language (these early sounds tend to be consonants - 'p, b, t, d, k, g, m, n, s, h, w, and j'). By the way, babbling is not unique to humans – young songbirds, sac-winged bats, and pygmy marmosets babble too. Fact!

The sounds that babies make change when they start to think more strategically (alongside the more complex gestures). They will start to make short sounds with a low pitch, which incidentally are the same sounds they make when they’re thinking and exploring. These 'thinking' sounds are different from higher pitched ‘feeling’, ‘emotional’ sounds.

here's a cute baby babbling video

Sounds and meaning

The second major milestone during this time is that infants start to pair a sound with what that sound means. At about 7 months old babies recognise their first few words and can pick them out of the conversational ‘stream’. Between 9 and 13 months children start to have an understanding of some words and phrases (in particular ‘No’ and their name). Babies might come up with what seems their own word for something. When they do this they are displaying that they are making the link between a sound and a meaning – evidence they are making that huge step towards symbolic thinking.

Some babies might know 20 words by about 8 months and respond to simple requests like ‘wave bye bye’ (which shows they understand what it means). Since 9 month olds can follow pointing and glancing, caregivers can help infants at this stage by focussing on a toy or book alongside the baby, explaining it, and talking about it. Babies will be engaged for longer if their caregivers work with them like this.

The 8-10 month period sees a huge burst of activity in the language areas of the brain. Technically what’s happening is that babies start to listen for stress patterns on words, whether the first part is said slow or fast, high or low. They listen harder to find familiar sequences in a stream of chat. They also listen for word boundaries – starting to recognise that words start and end with patterns. They listen for different sounds within the words. They listen for syllables that are often repeated. They listen for pauses, pitch changes, vowel lengths, and specific words – searching for the breaks within the word. A truly complex set of tasks that lead to some major achievements for babies.

And then at around 12 months your child will start to use words alongside their gestures! This is when experts tick that box labelled ‘language’. High fives mama and papa! But until then enjoy every conversation with your little babbling one – they really are magic!

These are broad brushstroke about how a child walks the path to language. As Robert E Owens Jr. says in his renowned book on Language Development “There is no single way in which children learn to communicate”. That's the fun of it.

This is the third post in our language series. Next up see why primary caregivers are vital in a child's journey to language or head to our toddler language overview.

Ngā manaakitanga (with best wishes), Liz xx

Next up:

#4. The importance of primary caregivers

#5. The importance of gestures

#6 Toddler language 12-24 months

Dr Newbury's research