Form and function in early communication: Language and pointing gestures

Dobrich, Wanda; Scarborough, Hollis S.

doi:10.1016/0022-0965(84)90090-0

Cited by 31 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…This increase was found to be related to the child's ability to specify linguistically. On the other hand, Dobrich & Scarborough (1984), in a sample of 22 two-year-olds, found few differences in the gestural development of linguistically advanced and less advanced children.…”

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Young children's coordination of gestural and linguistic reference

1984

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The current study investigated the relationship between young children's linguistic and nonlinguistic communicative strategies. Twenty-three children, 20-44 months of age, served as subjects. In a naturalistic setting, an adult gave signs of noncomprehension (a contingent query) to each of the child's object references. The child's original linguistic reference and use of gestures were recorded and compared to his/her subsequent linguistic and gestural responses to the adult query. Results showed that the children used gestures more often with pronouns than with nouns: either to clarify a linguistic reference from the original utterance or to supplement a linguistic response to the adult query. This would imply that two-to three-yearold children are aware of the communicative principle that pronouns 'need' gestures more than nouns, and more generally, that they are capable of coordinating their linguistic and nonlinguistic communicative strategies.A variety of researchers have suggested a direct relationship between the prelinguistic use of gestures and early language (e.g., Bates 1976, Bruner 1975, Carter 1978, Clark 1978, Halliday 1975. The nature of this relationship is not clear, however. For example, it may be that early gestures convey meanings that subsequently are expressed by language and the gestures fall into disuse as a consequence: language replaces gestures. Alternatively, it may be that early gestures convey meanings that are different from those expressed by early language and the onset of speech has little or no effect on gestural usage: they both proceed independently. Finally, it may be that early language and gestures are coordinated at some point to form a single communication system more powerful than either alone.

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confidence: 89%

Young children's coordination of gestural and linguistic reference

1984

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“…Not surprisingly, these productive language skills are often deficient in kindergartners who later develop reading problems (Butler et al, 1985;Silva et al, 1985) and in dyslexic schoolchildren (Catts, 1986;Donahue, Pearl, & Bryan, 1982;Feagans & Short, 1984;Siegel & Ryan, 1984;Taylor, Lean, & Schwartz, 1989). Syntactic complexity and speech accuracy are correlated in young normal children (e.g., Dobrich & Scarborough, 1984) and in children with expressive language impairments (e.g., Wolfus, Moscovitch, & Kinsboume, 1980). The interdependence of these two facets of language development is further suggested by Panagos, Quine, and Klich's (1979) demonstration that more speech errors tend to be made during a child's production of complex than simple syntactic forms.…”

Section: Precursors Of Reading Disabilitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Very Early Language Deficits in Dyslexic Children

1990

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At 2 1/2 years of age, children who later developed reading disabilities were deficient in the length, syntactic complexity, and pronunciation accuracy of their spoken language, but not in lexical or speech discrimination skills. As 3-year-olds, these children began to show deficits in receptive vocabulary and object-naming abilities, and as 5-year-olds they exhibited weaknesses in object-naming, phonemic awareness, and letter-sound knowledge that have characterized kindergartners who became poor readers in other studies. These late preschool differences were related to subsequent reading status as well as to prior language skills, but early syntactic proficiency nevertheless accounted for some unique variance in grade 2 achievement when differences at age 5 were statistically controlled. The language deficits of dyslexic children were unrelated to maternal reading ability and were not observed in children from dyslexic families who became normal readers. The implications of the results for etiological issues are discussed.

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“…Near 70% of gestures displayed around the second year of life are already produced with vocalizations (Dobrich & Scarborough, 1984;Franco & Butterworth, 1996;Leung & Rheingold, 1981;Liszkowski & Tomasello, 2011;Pine, …”

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Gestural-vocal coordination

Murillo¹,

Carmona²

2012

GEST

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Esta es la versión de autor del artículo publicado en: This is an author produced version of a paper published in:Gesture 12.1 (2012): 16-39 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/gest.12.1.02mur Copyright: © John Benjamins Publishing CompanyEl acceso a la versión del editor puede requerir la suscripción del recurso Access to the published version may require subscription AbstractThe aim of this study was to examine longitudinally gestural and vocal coordination in multimodal communicative patterns during the period of transition to first words, and its role in early lexical development. Eleven monolingual Spanish children were observed from 9 to 12 and 15 months of age in a semi-structured play situation. We obtained three main findings: (1) the use of multimodal patterns of communication increases significantly with age during the period studied; (2) the rate of use of those multimodal patterns at 12 months predicts lexical development at 15 months; and (3) the use of pointing gesture at 12 months, especially when it is accompanied of vocalization and social use of gaze, is the best predictor of lexical outcome at 15 months. Our findings support the idea that gestures, gazes and vocalizations are part of an integrated and developing system that children use flexibly to communicate from early on. The coordination of these three types of elements, especially when pointing gesture is involved, has a predictive value on early lexical development and appears as a key for progress in language development.

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Form and function in early communication: Language and pointing gestures

Cited by 31 publications

References 16 publications

Young children's coordination of gestural and linguistic reference

Young children's coordination of gestural and linguistic reference

Very Early Language Deficits in Dyslexic Children

Gestural-vocal coordination

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