Pointing comes first. It is infants' first spontaneous communicative gesture, while taught baby signs need months of modeling to appear. Baby sign language means hand signs hearing families teach before clear speech. Expect pointing to lead, with signs layered on top.
Table of Contents
- When does pointing normally emerge?
- When do taught signs appear?
- How do pointing and speech connect?
- What should caregivers do each day?
When does pointing normally emerge?
Typically developing infants begin pointing around 9–12 months. CDI norms summarized by Frontiers in Psychology give median onset of 8 months for declarative showing and 10 months for declarative pointing.
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association guidance expects infants at 7–12 months to imitate gestures and use pointing and waving with sounds. Federal guidance from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders expects pointing, waving, showing, giving, and peek-a-boo gestures by 10–12 months.
When do taught signs appear?
Taught baby signs generally require months of modeling. Joseph Garcia's 1987 Alaska Pacific University thesis, summarized by SIGNwith your BABY, found babies exposed regularly at 6–7 months began expressive signing at 8–9 months.
Parenting Science review of Bonvillian and Folven studies found first signs at about 8.2–8.5 months versus about 11.3 months for first spoken words in signing households. Those samples were tiny at 9–11 children, so results do not support broad claims.
How do pointing and speech connect?
Pompeu Fabra University researchers analyzed over 4,500 communicative acts from babbling to first words. Speech and pointing were already timed together before two-word combinations, according to the Counsel & Heal report on the Pompeu Fabra study.
Infants first point to request at about 10–12 months, then later point to share interest at about 18 months. Two-item gesture-plus-word combinations predict two-word speech, and declarative pointing predicts later vocabulary, according to The Psychologist briefing from the British Psychological Society.
What should caregivers do each day?
Respond to pointing first, then add signs without replacing speech. Gesture-plus-word pairs help bridge toward two-word speech.
Use this pattern through the day: For example, when your toddler points to milk, say milk while signing milk at eye level. That keeps pointing strong while giving the taught sign a clear word match.
- Notice the point and name the object in a short phrase.
- Pair any taught sign with the spoken word at eye level.
- Keep the sign and word together each time you model it.