Gestures During Infancy and Toddlerhood

Gestures are nonverbal movements—often involving hands, arms, or facial expressions—that help children communicate emotions, needs, and desires.

Gestures usually appear before spoken language and tend to decrease as vocabulary grows. For instance, an 11-month-old might raise their arms to be picked up, but by 18 months, they may start saying 'up'.

Children typically use two main types of gestures: deictic and representational.

First, around 6 months, infants begin using deictic gestures—like pointing or showing—to direct attention or signal interest.

Second, representational gestures convey specific meaning. These include conventional and iconic gestures.

Conventional gestures are culturally shared signals like waving goodbye or nodding to mean "yes," typically appearing by 12 months.

Next, iconic gestures emerge by 13 months, showing visual representations—like flapping arms to represent a bird.

Additionally, research shows that children who use more pointing gestures at 14 months have a larger vocabulary by around 42 months of age.

This links early gesture use to later language development.