Gesture

Also called Natural gesture, Pointing, Deictic gesture, Gestures

Pointing, reaching, showing, waving, shrugging. The oldest communication system there is, and the one partners most often ignore.

What it is

Gesture is communication with the body that isn't a formal sign: pointing at what you want, holding something up to show it, reaching, pushing away, waving, shrugging, beckoning, miming a drink. Everyone uses it, and for a great many people it's the main channel: the toddler before words, the person with aphasia who has lost the names, the person with a learning disability whose speech is hard to follow.

It counts as unaided communication, like speech and sign, because it needs no equipment. Its weakness is that it needs a partner who's looking. Its strength is that it's always available and it never runs out of battery.

Who it can help

Everyone, which is why it's undervalued. In particular: young children, where pointing at around twelve months is one of the strongest predictors of language to come; people with aphasia, for whom gesture is often taught explicitly as a route round missing words; people with dysarthria, where a gesture disambiguates unclear speech; autistic people who may use fewer conventional gestures and more idiosyncratic ones; and people with dementia, who keep gesture long after words go.

It's not a full language, and nobody should be left with gesture alone when they could have more. But no system replaces it; it runs alongside.

How it works

Gestures come in kinds. Pointing and reaching direct someone's attention to a thing (deictic). Showing and giving share it. Conventional gestures (waving, nodding, thumbs up, shrugging) carry fixed meanings within a culture. Iconic gestures act out the thing (a drink, a phone, big, small). Beat gestures just keep time with speech and carry emphasis.

Partners support gesture by watching for it, responding to it as a message, and naming what it meant: a reach towards the cupboard gets "Biscuit? You want a biscuit" and the biscuit. That's expansion applied to a movement. Partners kill gesture by not looking, by requiring the word before responding, or by responding so fast that the gesture never had to happen.

For the person with aphasia, therapists teach a small set of clear gestures for common needs and train the family to read them. For a child, adults gesture more themselves, which children copy. For an AAC user, the communication passport lists their gestures so strangers can read them too.

Getting started

Watch the person's hands and eyes for a day, and respond to every reach, point and look as if they'd said it. Say the word they'd have used.

Gesture more yourself. Point at what you're talking about. Mime the drink. Hold up the two options. Children and adults with language difficulties understand more when the speaker gestures, and they copy.

Write the person's own gestures into their communication dictionary, with what each one means.

Where to get help

Speech and Language UK explains early gesture and pointing for parents. For aphasia, the Stroke Association and Say Aphasia support gesture as a strategy. Your health visitor should look at pointing and gesture at the two-year check, and a speech and language therapist can assess it at any age. Afasic supports families of children with communication difficulties.