Observe the adult and child playing together.
Ask the adult to start putting blocks in a container, then hand the child a block. (Or another similar activity). Tell the adult not to tell the child what to do, just see if the child knows what the adult wants.
The child will continue putting blocks in the container (or doing what the adult started), indicating they know what the adult wants them to do.
Encourage early childhood educators and parents to use gestures in combination with language, as children will comprehend it better with visual and auditory input together.
 North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, 2015
©2015 by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/.