From the very earliest stages of language learning, children gesture as they talk. In adults, gesture isintegrated with the speech it accompanies, often conveying information that is related, but not identical, tothe information conveyed in that speech. Gesture can thus expand a speaker's communicative range.Project II builds on previously collected longitudinal obervations of 60 children, ages 14 months to schoolentry, whose families were chosen to represent the demographic range of Chicago. The project observesgesture in these children who will be followed as they enter school until age 10. In addition to providingnormative gesture data for the brain injured children in Project III, Project II has three specific aims.(1) Given that gesture can serve as a window that is distinct from speech into the child's communicativeabilities during the early stages of language-learning, the first aim is to characterize the way gesture is usedin later stages of language-learning as children begin school. Study 1 asks whether gesture continues toexpand the children's communicative repertoires in the later years, providing the first sign of more complexsyntactic constructions and new discourse devices. (2) Given individual differences in how children usegesture during the early stages of language-learning, the second aim is to explore whether thosedifferences predict later language use. Study 2 asks whether gesture not only opens the door for languagelearningbut also sets the learning trajectory. (3) The third aim is to explore whether gesture plays a causalrole in language-learning. Study 3 experimentally manipulates gesture in 144 additional 1-word speakersand observes the effect of this manipulation on their vocabulary and their transition to 2-word speech.While most children successfully acquire the language to which they are exposed, some achievemastery later than others. The timing of each milestone may be important for its effect on the eventualoutcome of language acquisition, as well as for its impact on other cognitive skills. Project II exploreswhether gesturing also varies, and, if so, how that variability is related to variability in later languagelearning.Given that there are individual differences in how often families use gesture, it becomes importantto determine whether gesture plays a role in language-learning. If so, educators need to become aware ofthe skills children display in the nonverbal realm, and learn to use them to improve verbal skills.
Showing the most recent 10 out of 81 publications
