Teaching toddlers communicative gestures
A symbolic or communicative gesture is a physical movement that is performed for a specific reason and has a specific meaning. For example, clapping is a symbolic gesture that communicates “I liked that!” or “Great job!” without using words.
Your child’s ability to utilize communicative gestures at the right time shows that they understand what they mean.
This is a very exciting milestone in strengthening your child’s communicative foundation — learning to imitate gestures is a necessary preliminary step to learning to imitate sounds and words.
3 Tips for teaching your toddler to use gestures to communicate
Tip 1 - Imitate clapping
To start teaching your child to imitate gestures, I recommend beginning with clapping — because it’s fun! Fun is very motivating for children. Create a routine in which you, your child, and other familiar people clap in excitement or to praise someone.
For example, every time Dad does a silly dance move, the whole family claps for Dad. If your family enjoys playing catch outside, clap for a person when they make a good throw.
The goal is for your child to imitate the symbolic gesture of clapping. They may need to observe the routine many times before they attempt to join in and clap. Continuing to practice clapping during the same activity ensures consistency and makes it easier for your child to catch on. If your child does not try to imitate clapping after three repetitions of a routine within a single activity, you may gently hold their elbows and help their arms move together and apart to clap their hands.
Tip 2 - Introduce one or two specific gestures at a time
The next step is to repeat this process with several other specific gestures of your choosing. The gestures that you practice with your child should reflect activities that are commonplace for you or your family. Other symbolic gestures could include waving hello and goodbye, shaking your head no to reject, or blowing a kiss to someone your child loves.
What gestures do the people in your family or community use? Choose a few that are important to you. Choosing gestures that your community uses regularly is best because your child will be able to use them on their own and participate in a natural way with the group, which will reinforce the behavior. As your child masters new gestures, continue to introduce more one or two at a time.
Tip 3 - Imitate gestures in a song
Once your child has learned several everyday gestures, you can start teaching them to imitate gestures in a song. Songs are great teaching tools because they’re fun for kids, and many children’s songs have corresponding dance moves. If you are unfamiliar with children’s songs, a quick search on YouTube will show you a plethora of children’s songs with corresponding hand gestures. Encouraging motor movement through dance helps your child engage with you and prepares them to learn.
Songs also provide an easy way to replicate the practice of the same gestures over and over again. These dance moves are considered symbolic gestures because they are utilized during the song at specific times in correspondence with the words in the songs. To practice, just sit in front of your child so they can easily see you, and show them the dance moves/gestures as you listen to a song, encouraging them to copy you. “The Wheels on the Bus,” “The Itsy Bitsy Spider,” and “If You’re Happy and You Know It” are a few good songs to start with. If there is a popular song in your family or community—such as the “Baby Shark” craze—those are great options to practice with your child and encourage the participation of other children too.
Baby sign language are another form of communicative gestures used by toddlers and an excellent speech therapy strategy for toddlers who haven’t started talking yet. To learn more about how to use baby sign language with your toddler, read our post here which will teach you how to get started, how many baby signs to teach, and how to get your toddler using them too!
Download our PDF activities guide for teaching toddler’s to communicate with gestures ↓
At home speech therapy activities for teaching toddlers to use communicative gestures
High Five or Knuckles
Materials:
None
Play with an activity that your child likes, does actions with, and feels successful with.
Set-up:
Another symbolic gesture that your family may do is to give High Fives or Knuckles, or both. These are great to practice if they are used frequently in your family and community group. They both have a defined motion that the adult/older child can do to start the routine (putting hand up with palm out for High Fives, or putting arm extended out with a closed fist for Knuckles) which your child will learn to recognize. Pick one of these to start with. Both of these gestures are typically used to celebrate a “job well done” or to show that you’re enjoying an activity, or even when an activity is over.
Start with an activity that your child likes and feels successful at--maybe a pull-back car, or a ball tower, or blowing bubbles, or a puzzle. These should be an activity that has something that you/your child does, ideally repeatedly, so that there are lots of opportunities to practice.
What to do:
Within that activity you’ve chosen, each time your child does the play action well (puts that ball in, or blows bubbles, or places a puzzle piece based on the above examples), cheer for them and put your hand out for High Five or Knuckles. If you have other caregivers or other kids present, you can also model giving them High Fives or Knuckles as well.
Repeat this each time your child completes that play action--over and over and over.
What to say:
Here are some things you might say when practicing:
Yaaay, High Five!
High Five, High Five, High Five (as each family member present participates)
Nice job, gimme Knuckles
Knuckles!! BOOM!
** Some families also have variations of what they may say while doing these actions, such as “Knucks, Pound it, or Fist Bump” for Knuckles; or “Chócala” in Spanish for High Five. We want your child to learn whatever your family says/calls this action!
Download our PDF activities guide for teaching toddler’s to communicate with gestures - this activity + 2 more! ↓
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Created In Collaboration By:
Stephanie Keffer, MS CCC-SLP
Stephanie Burgener-Vader, MA CCC-SLP
Melissa Sartori, MS CCC-SLP
Yvette Faire-Bostick, MS CCC-SLP
© 2020-2022. Stephanie Keffer, MS CCC-SLP. All Rights Reserved.
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