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How to communicate with babies using objects, pictures and signs

When you put your baby’s bib on, do they seem to know it’s dinner time even before their food appears?

Babies and children use clues from the objects around them to help them understand your words and their routines. As your child grows older, they might not be able to remember the name of the new toy they want, but show them a page of toys on a website and they can quickly point it out!

For children who are finding spoken words harder to understand and use, we can make the most of these other visual ways of supporting communication.

Objects

Babies and children first learn to anticipate their everyday routines. For example, a baby’s bib is a clue that it’s dinner time, and dad standing by the door holding a coat is a sign it’s time to go out.

You can use this to help your child understand what’s going to happen next alongside your words. Try showing your child one of the objects you use in the routine before you do it together, for example showing them their nappy before you change it.

A man with his baby grandson are looking at a teddy bear
Objects are a great way to help children understand their routine. You could use a teddy bear, for example, to represent that it's bedtime.

You can also pick an object to show to them before you go to different locations out of the house. For example, a leaf or twig to show you’re going to the park, or a piece of paper (a pretend shopping list) that they hold when you do your supermarket shop.

If you always give them the same small object, saying ‘we’re going to the park’, they’ll soon make the link.

This might help your child move on between activities more easily, particularly if you’re asking them to stop playing a favourite game to come for dinner!

Linking objects to your child’s activities like this is sometimes called giving them ‘objects of reference’.

Objects are also really helpful when giving your child a choice.

Here are a few benefits of showing your child the two things they can choose between:

  • Draws your child’s attention to your words.
  • Helps your child understand exactly what’s on offer.
  • Stops your child having to remember two pieces of spoken information at once.
  • Gives your child something to point at if they don’t yet know the word, can’t remember it, or say it clearly.

It’s worth knowing that children can only focus on one thing at a time – showing objects as well as talking about them means you’re more likely to hold their attention.

Once your child can use objects to make choices for items they will get straight away, they can start to make choices about things in the future, like activities that you are going to do a little later.

For example, if you often play with a ball at the park, you can start showing your child the ball before you leave the house so they know you’re going to the park together.

Maybe your child also likes going to feed the ducks and they’ve linked being given the bread bag with a trip to the pond. You could show your child both the bread bag and the ball before you leave the house so that they can then choose where they want to go.

Siblings are sitting at a table with their parents. They're drawing flashcards.
Making flash cards is a fun way to incorporate pictures into your everyday routine. Keep coming back to cards to help your child make connections between words and objects.

Pictures

Sometimes it’s just not possible to hold up the real objects to help your child understand what you’re saying, or to help them make choices. This is when photos and pictures are really helpful.

Pictures could be used for:

  • Different locations out and about that your child often goes to.
  • People your child sees regularly, so you can show them who’s coming round or who’s going to be looking after them.
  • Meals, so you can show your child what’s for tea before you start cooking it.

To make a simple choice board with photos, stick to two options to start off with, for example “Do you want to have pasta or fish fingers?”, showing photos of both meals side by side.

Once your child can cope with having two options and is pointing or saying a clear choice, you can try giving three or four different options.

Find out more about the power of pictures for communication.

A mum and her son with Down Syndrome are sitting together. She is signing to him.
When we talk, we often use gestures as part of our communication. Babies are very good at picking up on these gestures and, using them to communicate.

Signing

If you’ve watched Something Special with Mr Tumble, you’ll have noticed they use signs whilst they talk and sing. These are Makaton signs.

Children enjoy copying the signs, but they are so much more than fun actions.

Makaton signs make spoken words visual, giving children something to look at as well as listen to.

This helps children understand and remember words. Handily, they also slow down our talking, which helps children to understand too.

Although some parents worry that using signing like Makaton will stop their child talking, this isn’t the case – research shows it helps children learn language and we always talk at the same time as using Makaton signs.

Makaton helps all children, but children with a hearing impairment might instead learn British Sign Language (BSL). As the name suggests, this is a full language, which has its own sentence structures and grammar (it’s not based on spoken English like Makaton).

Whichever signs your child is learning, the more people in their lives who learn them too, the more chances your child will have to communicate.

Article produced with help from Alys Mathers, a Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist who works with children who have a wide range of speech, language and communication needs.

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