According to the Chicago Tribune, the University of Chicago found through studies that children whose parents use more gestures develop a larger vocabulary.
According to the study, parents who use a variety of body language and hand gestures are expected to show the same behaviour towards their children, which means that children who already use numerous gestures themselves at the age of 14 months will have a larger vocabulary than other children their age when they start school. This is of course an important factor for a later academic career.

According to the same study, parents with higher incomes and better education gesticulate more. This phenomenon could explain the difference in vocabulary between different income brackets.
Basically, the whole socio-economic difference in children's gestures can be explained by their parents' gestures. This does not mean that children from higher socio-economic backgrounds simply gesticulate more, it depends on what their parents do.

Many more studies are needed before a direct link between parental gestures and better grades can be established with certainty, but the available data show that a relatively simple change can offset some of the disadvantages that children from less affluent families have compared to children from more affluent families.

Gestures are already being used by experts to assess children's language ability, who are naturally pleased to have scientific proof of their theory.

Gesticulation can help children to communicate before their speech muscles are developed enough to speak. This shows children early on what communication is useful for, so that they have already mastered this learning process by the time they learn verbal communication.

When singing songs or playing games with children, you can incorporate a gesture for each sentence and get the children to join in with the gestures. Parents should use simple and spontaneous gestures.
This not only helps educational development but also social development. Through gestures, children learn to understand other people's body language before they say anything.