Babies can say volume without saying a single word. They can wave good-bye, point at things to indicate an interest or shake their heads to mean "No". These gestures may be very simple, but they are a sign of things to come. Year-old toddlers who use more gestures tend to have more expansive vocabularies several years later...
Children gesture before they learn to speak and previous studies have shown that even among children with similar spoken skills, those who gesture more frequently during early life tend to know more words later on...
These early differences had consequences later. A child's "gesture vocabulary" at 14 months of age predicted the number of words they knew between the ages of four and five...
Text and image credit to
Not Exactly Rocket Science. More at the link, including a discussion of the correlation of such gesturing with socioeconomic status.
Babies want to communicate... it's just their vocal chords are not developed enough yet.
ReplyDeleteWe taught our daughters sign language before they could ever speak. The first knew 50 signs and could form complete sentences before she learned to talk (and she was an early talker). The second is still a baby, but can give the milk sign, the potty sign, the 'more' sign, food, water, and others as well. I highly recommend sign language for a happier baby.