Gestures can 'encourage' child speech development

19 Nov 2008

Parents can encourage their child's speech and language development by using simple gestures for important key words, experts say.

The "Sing and Sign" programme teaches thousands of parents across the UK how to sign with their babies and encourage early communication.

A spokesperson for the initiative explained: "All babies gesture naturally while they are learning to talk. This is the process babies go through. All we encourage parents to do is really tap into that, and use a lot of gesture with their children.

"The kids really latch onto it, and they can use the gestures to tell their parents all sorts of interesting things, whilst their speech is still developing. It goes hand in glove with typical speech development."

Using small gestures for words such as milk, more, finished, animals and goodbye can help parents and their infants understand each other more and so strengthen the bond.

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