To Gesture or not to Gesture?

Paediatric Language Group2014

In children <3, does parent use of gesture result in faster acquisition of words compared to verbal input alone?

The question for the year was...

E3BP Types of Gesture

Types of Gestures Parent use of gesture

Child response

Child use of gesture

Parent response

Deictic (pointing)

Conventional (convey culturally appropriate gestures with prescribed gesture forms e.g. shaking a head sideways to convey negation, open palm for ‘give’, waving)

Iconic - (convey actions and attributes e.g. cupped hands to indicate roundness of a ball)natural sign, all gone/drink)

Other

Tally

Number of Deictic gestures used by parents

Number of Deictic gestures used by children

Number of conventional gestures used by parents

Number of conventional gestures used by children

Number of iconic gestures used by parents

Number of iconic gestures used by children

Naturalistic observations of parent-child interactions

Longitudinal studies Few ‘intervention’ studies

What did we find?

Relationship between child use of gesture and early vocabulary development

Small and reliable tendency for gestures to develop earlier than first words (Goodwyn & Acredolo, 1993)

At 14-16 months children use more gestures than speech (Ozcaliskan, 2005)

Gesture and speech increase over time. Significant increase in number of gestures between 14 and 24 months (Ozcaliskan, 2009)

The relationship between gesture and language development

Gesture + Speech combinations increase following first words

Supplementary gesture-speech combinations precede first words

Drop in gesture use from 26 mo as preference for verbal modality (Ozcaliskan 2005 & 2009)

The relationship between gesture and language development

Relationship between parent use of gesture and child use of gesture and language

Parents produce models for different types of gestures and gesture-speech combinations they want their child to use

Between 14-26 months, the type of gestures children use mirror that of their parents

Parent use of gesture often has a different role to child use of gesture (Ozcaliskan, 2005)

Evidence for a ‘gestural motherese’ (Ozcaliskan 2005 & 2013)

The relationship between gesture and language development

Relationship between parent use of gesture and child use of gesture and language

Mothers use of pointing when child 16 months old correlated with child vocabulary size at 20 months.

Maternal pointing at 20 months also correlated with child’s gesture production at 20 months (Iverson, 1999)

Parent using more gesture = child using more gesture (Rowe et al, 2009)

The relationship between gesture and language development

Development of gestures and receptive vocab in the second year of life have good predictive value for poor language at 2 (Suvi Stolt, 2014)

At 14 months of age child use of gesture is a predictor of vocabulary at 42 months (Rowe et al, 2008)

The effect of SES on child vocab at 54 months is impacted upon by the child’s use of gesture at 14 months (Rowe et al 2009)

Gesture as a predictor of language development

Child sign vocabulary is positively associated to mothers attunement to child affect.

More signs in child’s vocabulary = more attuned mothers were to changes in child affect

Sign training intervention increased maternal response to child distress cues

(Valotten, 2012)

Gesture to foster parental responsiveness

In children aged 10-24 months mothers translation of child gestures = positive impact on language acquisition.

Mothers translation of child gesture increases likelihood of the words becoming part of the child’s spoken vocabulary

(Goldin –Meadow & Goodrich, 2007)

Gesture to foster parental responsiveness

Sign input from parents fosters receptive language development

Sign input from parents significantly improves expressive language at 15 and 24 months of age (19, 30 and 36 approaching significance)

More gesture = more for caregivers to respond to = more rapid language development

Goodwyn, Acredlo and Brown (2000)

Gestural input for improving language development

Acquisition of new words for children with and without SLI is improved with...

- slower speaking rate- the use of gesture with spoken language

No significant effects for changing stress

Use of gesture improves comprehension Ellis Weismer (1993)

Gestural input for improving language development

Gesture is good for... Improving expressive language skills Fostering receptive language skills Promoting parent child responsiveness Is best measured early in the second year

as a predictor of language development Gesture is a precursor to first words and

gesture + sign is a precursor to combinations

There must be underlying cognitive skills in place to develop gesture (memory, categorisation and symbolisation)

Clinical bottom line

Parental responsiveness Low SES groups Best to assess gesture after 12 months Gesture + verbal input = best outcome for

language development

Relevance to Practice

2014 CAP’s completed

O’Toole & Chiat (2006) Symbolic functioning and language development in children with Down Syndrome

Vallotton (2012) Infant signs as intervention? Promoting symbolic gestures for preverbal children in low-income families supports responsive parent-child relationships, Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 2012, 401-415

Goodwin, Acredolo & Brown (2000) Impact of Symbolic Gesturing on Early Language Development

Ozcaliskan & Goldin-Meadow (2005) Do parents lead children by the hand?

Goodwyn & Acredolo (1993) Symbolic Gesture vs Word Goldin-Meadow, Woodrich et al (2007) Young children use their

hands to tell their mothers what to say

References

Rowe& Goldin-Meadow (2009) Differences in early gesture explain SES disparities in child vocabulary size at school entry

Ozcaliskan S. & Goldin-Meadow, S (2009) When gesture speech combinations do and do not index linguistic change

Iverson, J.M., Capircio, Longobardi E., Caselli M. Gesturing in mother-child interactions

Stolt S., Makila, A. et al (2014) The development and predictive value of gestures in very-low-birth-weight children: a longitudinal study

Weismer (1993). The influence of prosodic and gestural cues on novel word acquisition by children with SLI

Background reading: Ozcaliskan & Dimotrova (2013 How Gesture Input Provides a Helping

Hand to Language Development, Seminars in speech and language, 34, 4

References

Topic: TBC – Watch this space!

jessica.waters@sswahs.nsw.gov.au maryfalco@lifestart.org.au

2014