Welcome to Monday Mornings with Dr. Mona where each week I answer your questions to leave a message call 954-526-2641 and I may pick your question for a future episode.

Let's get to our first caller.

Hi Dr. Mona, this is Lauren from Indianapolis.

My friend is 13 months going on 14 months and is not gesturing, so clapping, pointing, waving.

They sign milestones, I'm somewhat concerned about this.

So besides requesting a speech evaluation through early intervention, are there any, you know, things that I can do at home to help him practice.

Those gestures, thanks so much Dr. Mona and thank you for all you do to educate our community.

Bye bye.

Thank you for this question Lauren and it's a great one.

Pointing and gesturing is a pre-verbal skill and it's very important in the foundation of spoken language.

So when we talk about language, we often think words, words, words speaking but of course there are some foundational skills such as the gesturing, the pointing, the turning to name, the responding to command.

These are all great things that even before a child can speak that they can do.

So I love that you have an early intervention request in but here are some ways to work on those pre-verbal skills.

First and foremost, the biggest one is modeling it.

So when you say bye to someone, do the gesture, bye bye and also you're saying the word too.

You can also bring their hand to their mouth to gesture if you're going to do like a kiss for example.

You know, say a kiss goodbye or waving bye bye, you can raise their hand and help them kind of gesture.

So do a blend of you waving bye and looking at the person looking back at your child to see what their reaction is to that interaction because of course they're watching you, they're watching what you're doing.

So you want to see how they're reacting to it and then you can also incorporate lifting their own hand, doing the gesture, showing them how to move their hands.

So it's a combination of those two.

Another big thing is reciprocity, so mimicking their sounds, any gestures that they do have, remember that gestures like pointing can sometimes start with a closed fist versus a pointer finger.

So any gestures they have, I want you to mimic it and respond to it, right?

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