Communicative gestures in infants and toddlers

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By: Annette Karmiloff-Smith

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Article Summary

Introduction
Nothing is more important for infants than the deep bond that they progressively build with their parents. And these strong emotional ties are just as important for parents, too. Indeed, what can be more heart-warming than baby's first smile, first gurgle, first" bye-bye" gesture, as well as the first sounds that resemble a word in human language!

In this article, we will first consider early precursors to gestures like crying, smiling and frowning, then the important role that spontaneous gestures play in the development of communication, finally examining the advantages and disadvantages of going beyond spontaneous gestures to teaching infants a form of Baby sign.

When does dialogue begin?
People used to think that dialogue only began when the baby could utter short sentences at around 18-24 months. But we now know that dialogic interaction begins long before that. Even in the final trimester in the womb, the beginnings of dialogue are apparent. When mother notices her baby moving, she will often talk to her "bumo". And, when the fetus hears her voice, it may pause for a moment, and then start to kick again, to which mother responds by renewing her conversation. Such mini-dialogues often occur when mother is resting and more aware of her unborn baby's movements. The moment a baby is born, parents immediately start to dialogue with their infant; they simply cannot stop themselves. They chat away to their new baby as if he or she understood everything: "Good morning, little one, and how are you today>, said in a very sing-song voice to capture their newborn's attention. And soon the baby starts to respond by kicking his legs. Almost unwittingly, the parent then pauses briefly to allow for their baby's turn-taking in the emergence of these budding, pre-linguistic conversational skills.

Crying as a form of communication
Of course, babies have many ways of conveying their intentions and feelings before they can talk. Does crying count as a communicative gesture? After all, babies cry to indicate that they are hungry, in pain, require a nappy change, or that they are simply in need of company. Interestingly, their different cries become increasingly differentiated over the first few months of life, such that mothers can recognize which type of cry conveys which type of meaning. Let's not forget that communication is a two-way activity, so the more mother responds appropriately to her baby's different cries, the more she reinforces the meaning of each cry for her baby. And, of course, later in toddler hood, children may express negative feelings, not just by crying, but by banging on the table or stamping on the floor. Whether cries and these other signs of anger count as "gestures" is a matter of debate.

Smiling and frowning as forms of communication
Smiling and frowning are other ways in which babies can affect the communicative behaviour of their parents. In fact, babies' first" smiles" are really just grimaces, but parents react with such ecstasy to what they think is a smile and react by smiling themselves, that the baby notes this reaction, decides that this is something that gives rise to positive reactions in their environment, and tries to reproduce the" smile". And so a pleasant interaction develops…. Moreover, anecdotal evidence suggests that babies practice these facial gestures during sleep. Have you ever popped in to check your sleeping child, only to find him smiling or frowning with his eyes closed?

The early course of communication
Beyond the early cries and signs of smiling and frowning, initially the baby responds to parental speech by making leg movements and, as of about 3 months, by blowing raspberries and cooing. It really isn't until about 10-13 months that the majority of infants produce their first recognizable words. But, don't imagine that they have been ignoring language up to then. Research has shown that well before they utter their first sounds, infants are very aware of language. At birth, they can distinguish their mother tongue (heard in the womb) from other languages, they can discriminate heard speech sounds like /pa/ and /ba/ and, as early as 8 months of age, they are busy segmenting the flow of the incoming speech stream into separate words. However, although they are busy processing the incoming language from the very start, it takes much longer for babies to start producing their own sounds and words. Babbling starts around 5-6 months, when babies repeatedly practice different sounds. Yet, despite all this practice at making sounds, it takes another 3 or 4 months before most infants produce anything like a recognizable word.

Why does it take so long? One reason is simply due to the difficulty of developing their articulatory skills so that babies can get their mouths around the pronunciation of the sounds that make up words. Indeed, early on, infants' gross motor skills are in advance of the fine motor skills required to control the articulation of speech. It takes many months for the infant's articulatory apparatus to shape itself so as to be able to pronounce, say, English or French or Japanese, depending on the language of the environment. The muscles in their articulatory systems are plastic and become progressively shaped by the language they are hearing and trying to produce. So babbling plays a crucial role in shaping our articulatory systems. But infants communicate effectively, well before they produce those magic first words. This is where gesture plays a critical role.

The importance of gestures in communication
Alongside speech, we naturally use gestures. Just watch a couple of friends chatting and note how much they move their hands while talking. People used to think that it was just the Italians who gesticulated, but careful studies of even the so-called" reserved" British showed that they, too, use lots of gestures to accompany speech. Have you ever tried not to gesture at all when you are speaking? You'll find that it may actually hamper your output, because gesture is such a natural accompaniment to speech. Just as gestures occur naturally between adults, so they do between parent and child.

What are the child's first gestures?
Gestures tend to be fairly iconic, i.e., they resemble their intended meaning. For example, if you wished to gesture" eat" you would probably raise your fingers to your mouth and move your lips to imitate the act of eating, whereas the word" eat" doesn't sound anything like the act of eating. Other gestures tend to be more conventionalised, like the waving of a hand to say "goodbye". The MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory, used by psychologists in 39 different countries, lists the following 12 as the most common spontaneous communicative gestures encountered in infants in early development, usually towards the end of the first year:
Extends whole arm to show parent something s/he is holding, meaning:" Look what I've goes"
Points (with arm and index finger extended) at some interesting object or event, meaning:" Share your attention to this interesting thing with me"
Reaches out and gives parent an object s/he is holding, meaning: "Take this"
Waves bye-bye on her/his own when someone leaves, meaning: "Goodbye"
Extends arms upwards, meaning:" I want to be picked up"
Shakes head laterally, meaning:" No"
Nods head vertically, meaning:" Yes"
Gestures by placing fingers to closed lips, meaning "Hugs"
Requests something by extending arm and opening and closing hand, meaning: "I want that" or" Open that"
Blows kisses from a distance, meaning: "I feel affectionate towards you"
Smacks lips in a"yum yul" gesture, meaning" This tastes good"
Shrugs shoulders and/or turns over flattened hands, meaning:" All gone" or "Where did it go>"
Most children produce these gestures towards the end of their first year and during the first half of their second year. Of course, many of these gestures are learned by the baby from the natural gestures that accompany their parent' spoken language, but to count as part of the child's gestural system they must occur spontaneously and not as an immediate imitation of what the parent has just done. So, for instance, if you have just made a bye-bye gesture and then encourage your baby to do the same," bye-bye" would not yet count. It only counts as a fully-fledged gesture if your child produces it spontaneously when someone leaves the room, without your needing to encourage the production of the gesture.

Pointing as one of the most important, early communicative gestures
In the list above, we mentioned the common tendency for infants to point with the arm and index finger extended. Interestingly, pointing is a very human-specific achievement. Chimpanzees, our closest cousins in evolution, neither point nor do they use the pincer grip, i.e., hold a small object between thumb and index finger. At best, to pick up small objects, chimpanzees oppose their thumb to the whole of the rest of their hand. But they never have been seen to point. Yet pointing is pervasive amongst human babies. Proper pointing tends to start around 9 months when the baby masters the pincer grip. Prior to 9 months, babies tend to extend their arm with a fisted hand, usually trying to get something they want. Psychologists call this latter" instrumental pointing". But when pointing includes the extended index finger, it can also mean: "Look, there's an interesting event over there that I want to share with you". We call that" declarative pointing", which appears towards the end of the first year. It counts as a real milestone. Again, what helps to make the baby repeat pointing gestures is the parent's interested reaction to their gestures.

Baby sign
Is it possible to capitalize on the baby's natural tendency to gesture so as to enhance communication between parent and young baby? This is precisely the question that some child psychologists asked themselves. They wondered if it would be possible to teach infants to use their hands to communicate manually during the period when their mouths were still incapable of emitting speech sounds orally. In other words, they wanted to see if they could capitalize on children's manual dexterity, which is claimed to be earlier than verbal skills. The result was "Baby sign", a gestural enhancement for communication between infant and parents.

What is Baby sign?
First and foremost, it is important to realize that Baby sign is not a language, but a symbolic auxiliary to oral language. Baby sign is formed of a list of invented manual gestures, which are iconic, i.e., the gestures bear a strong resemblance to the object or event being referred to. To give a concrete example, the Baby sign for" hungry" is made with the tongue licking the lips and the right hand rubbing up and down the stomach;" sleepy" is made by pointing both index fingers upwards above open eyes and letting the fingers drop down and the eyes close. Some Baby signs are borrowed from real sign language, particularly where such signs are iconic but, unlike real sign language which rapidly strings lots of signs together to make full sentences like all spoken languages do, Baby sign has none of the normal grammatical richness but involves the simple use of isolated words or, at most, 2- to 3-word childlike utterances, such as "me sleepy".

What Baby sign is not
Baby sign is not a language. It is very different from British Sign Language (BSL), for example. BSL is a fully-fledged human language, with a rich vocabulary and complex grammar. Anything you can say in spoken language can be expressed in true sign languages, even very abstract or hypothetical ideas. The hands, face and body position all contribute to sign languages, with shape and position of the hands in space playing a critical role. One can even" whisper" in sign by keeping one's hands within a small space on one's lap, thereby reducing the usual signing space (a hemispheric shaped space in front of the signer). BSL has a grammar as different from English as English grammar is from French grammar, for instance. Each of the world's sign languages has evolved its own vocabulary and grammar within the deaf communities in which it is used. In sum, Baby sign is very different from real sign languages.

How does one use Baby sign?
It is important to note that babies can only master words and Baby signs once appropriate cognitive skills like joint attention are in place. In other words, the baby needs to be able to maintain eye contact with the parent, follow the parent's eye gaze to an object being named and/or signed, and then realize that the word/Baby sign the parent is using must refer to that object or event. Such skills develop slowly over the first year of life. Of course, young babies can be taught to directly imitate sounds or Baby signs, but unless they use them symbolically, they are merely motor patterns and have little to do with meaning.

According to those who have used Baby sign, while it can be introduced around 6-7 months, it is most successful if started around 11 months when the infant is already making lots of sounds and clearly drawing other' attention to things in his or her environment. Baby sign is always used alongside spoken language: Mum might say:" Are you sleepy?" while simultaneously making the Baby sign for" sleep". In all cases, parents are encouraged to use words and Baby signs simultaneously. These communicative symbols are not meant to replace spoken words.

Baby sign is best thought of as "enhanced gesturing". In other words, Baby sign builds on a naturally occurring, though more limited, tendency to use gestures symbolically. Parents naturally use a lot of gestures when talking to their babies: gestures for bye-bye, kiss, hug, all gone, and the like. Baby sign has simply capitalized on this natural tendency.

Does Baby sign enhance language development?
Some child psychologists have claimed that infants whose parents use Baby sign produce their first gestural signs up to three months earlier than first words. However, an in-depth review of all the relevant literature revealed that once the proper analyses had been done, first words in Baby sign and first words in speech actually both occurred around the same time. This makes sense if one recalls that certain cognitive prerequisites must first be in place for both Baby sign and speech.

Do all children learn Baby sign in the same way? In fact, studies of Baby sign show that there are huge individual differences in whether infants use Baby sign or not. For the first 5 to 15 gestural symbols, it turns out that: some children talk early and show little interest in most gestural signs; some children are prolific in both speech and Baby sign simultaneously; some are slow in both. In almost all children who are exposed to both, there is a bimodal period during which both sign and speech are used alongside one another. Children tend to use signs for some things and to use words for others. "Flower" is a difficult word to pronounce because of the consonant cluster /fl/ at the beginning of the word, so children taught Baby sign may prefer the sign for "flower" (a simple gesture of smelling one's hand) rather than attempting to pronounce the tricky word. In other cases, spoken words are preferred. Finally, studies show that the use of Baby sign declines rapidly between 19-26 months and thereafter disappears altogether in most children.

Is the introduction of Baby sign harmful?
One clear research outcome is that even if Baby sign does not particularly speed up language, it certainly doesn't impede the acquisition of spoken language. Of course, most mothers manage to interact very well with their babies without Baby sign, they quickly learn to recognize what their baby's different cries mean, and parent and baby seem to understand each other in the early months despite the spoken language barrier. But, if parents decide to use Baby sign, they should practice the signs and become fluent before they introduce them to their babies, so that when they are used they are a completely natural accompaniment to speech. Above all, it is important for mothers and fathers to talk to and interact with their babies in a completely natural way, and not to take on a" teaching" mode.

Finally, Baby sign could turn out to be useful if there is a family history of language impairments or late language onset, particularly in boys. It is worth remembering that forms of gestural language like Makaton have been used for many decades with children with learning disorders, so in that respect Baby sign is not a new invention. It is its extension to typically developing infants with no impairments that is new.

Does using Baby sign enhance social interaction?
There are some claims in the literature that the use of Baby sign enhances social interaction between child and parent, but it is difficult to assess these claims because of a lack of proper control groups and small sample sizes. If it were true that signing improves social interaction and makes infants less frustrated, then it should be the case that deaf infants of deaf signing parents should be less frustrated than hearing infants and not go through the terrible two's! But there are no data substantiating such an idea. Although some parents enjoy using Baby sign, others report that they find it rather artificial and give up after a while. It is therefore wise only to use Baby sign if you, as a parent, find it very natural. Indeed, any time a parent has to actively think carefully about what she is trying to convey to her infant, then it is unnatural. Most importantly, Baby sign should never be thought of as a means to, say, increase IQ, because then the parent slips into a teaching mode and will not be using Baby sign as a natural gestural means to enhance the joys of communication.

Concluding thoughts
Baby sign, if used naturally, is a fun gestural complement to speech, but in no case should Baby sign replace speech, books or games, of course. Although no research exists on gesturing during sleep, it is very probable that the brain consolidates gestural learning during sleep and that babies practice some of their communicative signs. A particularly lovely anecdote comes from one American mother whose toddler did a lot of gesturing:

"The sign for "flashlight" is one he made up himself--he takes his right hand , holds it about 6 inches from his face, palm facing in, fingers spread, and waves his hand back and forth between his ear and his mouth. It's a distinctive sign, and it's the only one he uses for flashlight (a few of his signs have multiple meanings--he has one that he uses for "fire," "juice" and "butterfly!—that gets a little confusing sometimes!). He uses the sign consistently whenever he sees a flashlight, be it in real life or in books. I've never watched him in his sleep before, so I don't know if he's done this in the past, but I was really blown away by it. And since he made the sign twice with about a minute and a half between gestures, it didn't appear to be random but rather a response to whatever he was dreaming about. He currently has about 30 signs in his vocabulary--I guess I'll have to do a little more nighttime observation to see what else he's dreaming about!"

If parents succeed in becoming completely natural in using bimodal gesture/speech, then Baby sign could lead to rich interactions with their infant and to have fun. Above all, we want our babies to be joyfully active, to become increasingly independent communicators and to engage in rich dialogues with others. Whether this is done through speech and natural gestures or through speech and Baby sign is a matter of personal choice.

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