Baby Pointing but Not Talking? Why Gestures Are Great News

By Julia Taylor, B.App.Sc. (Sp.Path.), M.Hlth.Sc., CPSP 6 min read

If your baby points at everything but says nothing, here's the reframe you need: pointing IS talking, minus the sound. The NIDCD defines language broadly enough to include meaningful gestures — speech is only one way to express it (National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders [NIDCD], 2022). Better still, gestures are among the most encouraging signs in a not-yet-talking child. Here's why, and how to build the bridge from finger to first word.

The gesture timeline (it’s a real milestone track)

Gestures develop on a schedule of their own, and they're on the official checklists: waving bye-bye by 12 months, pointing to show you something interesting by 18 months, and gestures beyond waving and pointing — like blowing a kiss or nodding — by 24 months (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2026a, 2026b, 2026c).

Note that 18-month milestone carefully: pointing to SHOW you something. That's different from pointing to get something. Showing-off pointing means your child wants to share attention with you — 'look at that! are you seeing this?' — and that shared-attention instinct is the social foundation words are built on.

Why gestures predict good things

In the research on late talkers, the children who went on to catch up — the so-called late bloomers — tended to use more communicative gestures than the children whose delays persisted (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association [ASHA], n.d.). It's a group-level finding, not a guarantee for any one child, but the logic is intuitive: a pointing, waving, showing child has the communication engine running. What's pending is the spoken output, not the desire to connect.

A genuinely reassuring pattern looks like: lots of pointing and showing, good understanding, responsive back-and-forth games. A pattern worth checking looks like: few gestures AND few words AND patchy understanding — that combination deserves a professional look sooner rather than later (ASHA, n.d.; CDC, 2026c).

How to turn points into words

Every point is a question waiting for your answer. The method:

Always answer the point with the word: they point at the bus, you say ‘Bus! Big bus!’ — straight from the CDC’s playbook (CDC, 2026a).
Point at things yourself — dogs, diggers, the moon — and name them. Pointing is a two-way game (CDC, 2026a).
Add gesture + word together: wave AND say ‘bye-bye’, arms up AND ‘up!’ Pairing gives two routes to the same meaning.
Don’t withhold: refusing the banana until they ‘use words’ punishes communication. Answer the gesture, model the word, trust the process.

Where this leads

The pointing stage is exactly where the first stage of the Talking Journey on this site begins — turning shared attention into first words like 'more', 'up', and 'go', each with its own word kit of toys and scripts. And picture books are the ultimate pointing arena: a Woodland Friends book at bedtime gives that little index finger a dozen labeled landings per night.

The takeaway

A pointing baby is a communicating baby. Answer every point with the word it was asking for, add gestures to your own talk, and treat each wave and show as a conversational turn — because it is. Words ride in on the road gestures build.

Sources & further reading

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (n.d.). Late language emergence (Practice Portal). https://www.asha.org/practice-portal/clinical-topics/late-language-emergence/
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (n.d.). Communication milestones: Birth to 5. https://www.asha.org/public/developmental-milestones/communication-milestones/
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2026a). Milestones by 1 year. https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/actearly/milestones/milestones-1yr.html
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2026b). Milestones by 18 months. https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/actearly/milestones/milestones-18mo.html
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2026c). Milestones by 2 years. https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/actearly/milestones/milestones-2yr.html
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. (2022). Speech and language developmental milestones. https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/speech-and-language

A friendly note (and the fine print)

This article is general educational information only. It is not speech therapy, therapeutic advice, an assessment, a diagnosis, or a substitute for individualized professional care, and reading it does not create a therapist–client relationship. Every child is different — if you have any concerns about your child’s speech, language, hearing or development, please consult your own certified speech-language pathologist, pediatrician or family health professional, who can advise you about your individual child. See when to talk to a professional for how to find one.

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