Gesture is at the cutting edge of early language development

Özçalışkan, Şeyda; Goldin‐Meadow, Susan

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2005.01.001

Cited by 307 publications

(286 citation statements)

References 22 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

251

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…They, for example, point at a cookie while describing the action to be performed on the cookie (e.g., ' eat '+point at cookie), or point at a book while naming the person to act on the book (e.g., ' mommy '+point at book). In these early combinations the OBJECT (e.g., cookie, book) is almost always indicated by a deictic gesture (Ö zçalışkan & Goldin-Meadow, 2005a combinations in which object information is conveyed by an iconic gesture appear much later, typically soon after children begin to show steady increases in their iconic gesture production -roughly around three years of age (Ö zçalışkan & Goldin-Meadow, 2009, 2011. In this study we ask whether children understand the meaning of gesture+speech combinations -in which an iconic gesture adds object information to the accompanying speech -during the period when they begin to produce similar gesture+speech combinations with iconic gestures in their everyday interactions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How early do children understand gesture–speech combinations with iconic gestures?

2013

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Children understand gesture+speech combinations in which a deictic gesture adds new information to the accompanying speech by age 1;6 (Morford & Goldin-Meadow, 1992; ‘push’+point at ball). This study explores how early children understand gesture+speech combinations in which an iconic gesture conveys additional information not found in the accompanying speech (e.g., ‘read’+BOOK gesture). Our analysis of two- to four-year-old children's responses in a gesture+speech comprehension task showed that children grasp the meaning of iconic co-speech gestures by age three and continue to improve their understanding with age. Overall, our study highlights the important role gesture plays in language comprehension as children learn to unpack increasingly complex communications addressed to them at the early ages.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How early do children understand gesture–speech combinations with iconic gestures?

2013

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Speakers often gesture as they speak, especially when they talk about space (Rauscher, Krauss, & Chen, 1996). Recent research has shown that speech and cospeech gesture form an integrated system (Bernardis & Gentilucci, 2006;Clark, 1996;Kendon, 2004;McNeill, 1992McNeill, , 2005 and that they develop in close relation to each other during childhood (Bates, 1976;Capirci, Iverson, Pizzuto, & Volterra, 1996;McNeill, 1992McNeill, , 2005Nicoladis, Mayberry, & Genesee, 1999;Ö zçalişkan & Goldin-Meadow, 2005). Cospeech gestures have also been found to reflect children's representations not necessarily expressed in speech at certain stages of development (Alibali & Goldin-Meadow, 1993;Ehrlich, Levine, & Goldin-Meadow, 2006;Pine, Nicola, & Messer, 2004).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of cross-linguistic variation in speech and gesture: Motion events in English and Turkish.

Özyürek¹,

Kita²,

Allen³

et al. 2008

Developmental Psychology

102

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The way adults express manner and path components of a motion event varies across typologically different languages both in speech and cospeech gestures, showing that language specificity in event encoding influences gesture. The authors tracked when and how this multimodal cross-linguistic variation develops in children learning Turkish and English, 2 typologically distinct languages. They found that children learn to speak in language-specific ways from age 3 onward (i.e., English speakers used 1 clause and Turkish speakers used 2 clauses to express manner and path). In contrast, English-and Turkish-speaking children's gestures looked similar at ages 3 and 5 (i.e., separate gestures for manner and path), differing from each other only at age 9 and in adulthood (i.e., English speakers used 1 gesture, but Turkish speakers used separate gestures for manner and path). The authors argue that this pattern of the development of cospeech gestures reflects a gradual shift to language-specific representations during speaking and shows that looking at speech alone may not be sufficient to understand the full process of language acquisition.

show abstract

“…Co-speech gestures are produced by speakers from all cultural and linguistic backgrounds (Feyereisen & de Lannoy, 1991) and are relied on by both speakers and listeners during communication in the speakers' second language (M. Gullberg, 2011). Further, in children, gesture precedes language acquisition and children often use gestures to depict things they cannot yet express verbally (Acredolo & Goodwyn, 1985;Broaders, Cook, Mitchell, & Goldin-Meadow, 2007;Capone, 2007;Iverson & Goldin-Meadow, 2005;Özçalışkan & Goldin-Meadow, 2005).…”

Section: The Role Of Co-speech Gestures In Communicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Externalizing the Private Experience of Pain: A Role for Co-Speech Gestures in Pain Communication?

Rowbotham

Lloyd

Holler

et al. 2014

Health Communication

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Gesture is at the cutting edge of early language development

Cited by 307 publications

References 22 publications

How early do children understand gesture–speech combinations with iconic gestures?

How early do children understand gesture–speech combinations with iconic gestures?

Development of cross-linguistic variation in speech and gesture: Motion events in English and Turkish.

Externalizing the Private Experience of Pain: A Role for Co-Speech Gestures in Pain Communication?

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About