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Shin SY, Rowe ML, Lee HS. Early gesture use predicts children's language development in South Korea: New evidence supporting the cross-cultural importance of pointing. INFANCY 2024; 29:327-354. [PMID: 38407556 DOI: 10.1111/infa.12585] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/31/2022] [Revised: 12/21/2023] [Accepted: 12/23/2023] [Indexed: 02/27/2024]
Abstract
Research in the U.S. and other Western countries shows that children's early gesture use, which starts prior to verbal communication, is an important predictor of children's later language development. Despite increasing efforts to study gesture use in diverse contexts, most of our knowledge on the role of gesture is largely based on populations of Western countries. In this study, we add to the growing body of international research by examining gesture use by 31 mothers and their 14-month-old infants (12 girls) in South Korea and investigate the gestures used during interaction, and whether early gesture use at 14 months predicts Korean children's later language skills at 36 months. The results showed that in addition to using gestures observed in other cultural contexts, Korean mother-child dyads used culturally specific gesture (i.e., bowing), showing an early sign of socialization that starts with preverbal children. In addition, Korean infants' index-finger pointing, but not showing and giving, predicted their later receptive and expressive vocabulary skills at 36 months, providing additional support for the importance of pointing in early language development.
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Kaletsch K, Liszkowski U. A new online paradigm to measure spontaneous pointing in infants and caregivers. Infant Behav Dev 2024; 74:101907. [PMID: 38011762 DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2023.101907] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/20/2023] [Revised: 10/30/2023] [Accepted: 11/10/2023] [Indexed: 11/29/2023]
Abstract
Index-finger pointing is a milestone in the development of referential communication. Previous research has investigated infants' pointing with a variety of paradigms ranging from parent reports to field observations to experimental settings, suggesting that lab-based semi-natural interactional settings seem especially suited to elicit and measure infant pointing. With the Covid-pandemic the need for a comparable online tool became evident enabling also efficient, low-cost, large-scale, diverse data collection. The current study introduces a remote online paradigm, based on the established live 'decorated-room' paradigm. In Experiment 1, 12-months old infants and their caregivers (N = 24) looked at digitally presented stimuli together while being recorded with their webcam. We coded pointing gestures of infants and caregivers as well as caregivers' responses to infants' pointing. In Experiment 2 (N = 47), we optimized stimuli and investigated influences of stimulus characteristics. We systematically varied the style of depiction, stimulus complexity, motion, and facial stimuli. Main findings were that infants and caregivers pointed spontaneously, with mean behaviors ranging within the benchmarks of previously reported findings of the live decorated-room paradigm. Further, the social setting was preserved as revealed by significant relations between parents' responsive points and infants' pointing frequency. Analyses of stimuli characteristics revealed that infants pointed more to stimuli depicting faces than to other stimuli. The new remote online paradigm proves a useful addition to established paradigms. It offers novel opportunities for simplified assessments, large-scale sampling, and worldwide, diversified data collection.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Ulf Liszkowski
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Hamburg, Germany
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Ger E, Küntay AC, Ertaş S, Koşkulu-Sancar S, Liszkowski U. Correlates of infant pointing frequency in the first year. INFANCY 2023; 28:986-1006. [PMID: 37746929 DOI: 10.1111/infa.12560] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/24/2022] [Revised: 08/28/2023] [Accepted: 09/01/2023] [Indexed: 09/26/2023]
Abstract
This study examines the emergence of concurrent correlates of infant pointing frequency with the aim of contributing to its ontogenetic theories. We measured monthly from 8 to 12 months infants' (N = 56) index-finger pointing frequency along with several candidate correlates: (1) family socioeconomic status (SES), (2) mothers' pointing production, and (3) infants' point following to targets in front of and behind them. Results revealed that (1) infants increased their pointing frequency across age, but high-SES infants had a steeper increase, and a higher pointing frequency than low-SES infants from 10 months onward, (2) maternal pointing frequency was not associated with infant pointing frequency at any age, (3) infants' point following abilities to targets behind their visual fields was positively associated with their pointing frequency at 12 months, after pointing had already emerged around 10 months. Findings suggest that family SES impacts infants' pointing development more generally, not just through maternal pointing. The association between pointing and following points to targets behind, but not in front, suggests that a higher level of referential understanding emerges after, and perhaps through the production of pointing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ebru Ger
- Department of Psychology, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
| | - Aylin C Küntay
- Department of Psychology, Koç University, Istanbul, Türkiye
| | - Sura Ertaş
- Department of Psychology, Koç University, Istanbul, Türkiye
| | - Sümeyye Koşkulu-Sancar
- Department of Educational and Pedagogical Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Ulf Liszkowski
- Department of Psychology, Hamburg University, Hamburg, Germany
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Alvarenga P. Birth cohort study indicates the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on early child language development. Evid Based Nurs 2023:ebnurs-2022-103674. [PMID: 37620033 DOI: 10.1136/ebnurs-2022-103674] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 07/07/2023] [Indexed: 08/26/2023]
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Guevara I, Rodríguez C. Developing communication through objects: Ostensive gestures as the first gestures in children's development. DEVELOPMENTAL REVIEW 2023. [DOI: 10.1016/j.dr.2023.101076] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/12/2023]
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Pronina M, Grofulovic J, Castillo E, Prieto P, Igualada A. Narrative Abilities at Age 3 Are Associated Positively With Gesture Accuracy but Negatively With Gesture Rate. JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2023; 66:951-965. [PMID: 36763840 DOI: 10.1044/2022_jslhr-21-00414] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/18/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE Though the frequency of gesture use by infants has been related to the development of different language abilities in the initial stages of language acquisition, less is known about whether this frequency (or "gesture rate") continues to correlate with language measures in later stages of language acquisition, or whether the relation to language skills also depends on the accuracy with which such gestures are produced (or reproduced). This study sets out to explore whether preschoolers' narrative abilities are related to these two variables, namely, gesture rate and gesture accuracy. METHOD A total of 31 typically developing 3- to 4-year-old children participated in a multimodal imitation task, a context-based gesture elicitation task, and a narrative retelling task. RESULTS Results showed that there was a significant positive correlation between the children's narrative scores and their gesture accuracy scores, whereas higher rates of gesture use did not correlate with higher levels of narrative skill. Further multimodal regression analysis confirmed that gesture accuracy was a positive predictor of narrative performance, and moreover, showed that gesture rate was a negative predictor. CONCLUSIONS The fact that both gesture accuracy and gesture rate are strongly and differently linked to oral language abilities supports the claim that language and gesture are highly complex systems, and that complementary measures of gesture performance can help us assess with greater granularity the relationship between gesture and language development. These findings highlight the need to use gesture during clinical assessments as an informative indicator of language development and suggest that future research should further investigate the value of multimodal programs in the treatment of language and communication disorders.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mariia Pronina
- Department of Translation and Language Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain
| | | | - Eva Castillo
- Department of Translation and Language Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Pilar Prieto
- Department of Translation and Language Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain
- Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Alfonso Igualada
- Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain
- Institut Guttmann, Institut Universitari de Neurorehabilitació, Barcelona, Spain
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De Froy A, Rollins PR. The cross-racial/ethnic gesture production of young autistic children and their parents. AUTISM & DEVELOPMENTAL LANGUAGE IMPAIRMENTS 2023; 8:23969415231159548. [PMID: 36895829 PMCID: PMC9989386 DOI: 10.1177/23969415231159548] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/18/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND & AIMS Early gesture plays an important role in prelinguistic/emerging linguistic communication and may provide insight into a child's social communication skills before the emergence of spoken language. Social interactionist theories suggest children learn to gesture through daily interactions with their social environment (e.g., their parents). As such, it is important to understand how parents gesture within interactions with their children when studying child gesture. Parents of typically developing (TD) children exhibit cross-racial/ethnic differences in gesture rate. Correlations between parent and child gesture rates arise prior to the first birthday, although TD children at this developmental level do not yet consistently exhibit the same cross-racial/ethnic differences as their parents. While these relationships have been explored in TD children, less is known about the gesture production of young autistic children and their parents. Further, studies of autistic children have historically been conducted with predominantly White, English-speaking participants. As a result, there is little data regarding the gesture production of young autistic children and their parents from diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds. In the present study, we examined the gesture rates of racially/ethnically diverse autistic children and their parents. Specifically, we explored (1) cross-racial/ethnic differences in the gesture rate of parents of autistic children, (2) the correlation between parent and child gesture rates, and (3) cross-racial/ethnic differences in the gesture rates of autistic children. METHODS Participants were 77 racially/ethnically diverse cognitively and linguistically impaired autistic children (age 18 to 57 months) and a parent who participated in one of two larger intervention studies. Naturalistic parent-child and structured clinician-child interactions were video recorded at baseline. Parent and child gesture rate (number of gestures produced per 10 min) were extracted from these recordings. RESULTS (1) Parents exhibited cross-racial/ethnic differences in gesture rate such that Hispanic parents gestured more frequently than Black/African American parents, replicating previous findings in parents of TD children. Further, South Asian parents gestured more than Black/African American parents. (2) The gesture rate of autistic children was not correlated with parent gesture, a finding that differs from TD children of a similar developmental level. (3) Autistic children did not exhibit the same cross-racial/ethnic differences in gesture rate as their parents, a result consistent with findings from TD children. CONCLUSIONS Parents of autistic children-like parents of TD children-exhibit cross-racial/ethnic differences in gesture rate. However, parent and child gesture rates were not related in the present study. Thus, while parents of autistic children from different ethnic/racial backgrounds appear to be conveying differences in gestural communication to their children, these differences are not yet evident in child gesture. IMPLICATIONS Our findings enhance our understanding of the early gesture production of racially/ethnically diverse autistic children in the prelinguistic/emerging linguistic stage of development, as well as the role of parent gesture. More research is needed with developmentally more advanced autistic children, as these relationships may change with development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Adrienne De Froy
- Adrienne De Froy, School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, The University of Texas at Dallas, Callier Center for Communication Disorders, 1966 Inwood Road, Dallas, TX 75235, USA.
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Khatin-Zadeh O, Eskandari Z, Marmolejo-Ramos F. Gestures Enhance Executive Functions for the Understating of Mathematical Concepts. Integr Psychol Behav Sci 2022:10.1007/s12124-022-09694-4. [PMID: 35441337 DOI: 10.1007/s12124-022-09694-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 04/09/2022] [Indexed: 11/05/2022]
Abstract
This article discusses the role of gestures in enhancing inhibition, working memory, and cognitive flexibility as the three components of executive functions during the processing of mathematical concepts that are metaphorically described in terms of motion events. Gestures can contribute to the process of inhibition by highlighting the relevant information and keeping the irrelevant information out of focus of attention. Gestures contribute to working memory in two ways during mathematical processing. They increase activity in the motor areas of the brain. Therefore, they may facilitate the process of understanding those mathematical concepts that are described in terms of motion event, as the motor system could play a role in the grounding and the processing of these concepts. Also, gestures can function as an external working memory and keep the visual representation of some parts of information for a short period of time in order to manipulate that information in later stages of processing. Gestures enhance cognitive flexibility by allowing us to have a spatial representation of that concept or idea for a period of time. During this time, we can shift our perspective and process that concept or idea from a variety of perspectives.
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Affiliation(s)
- Omid Khatin-Zadeh
- School of Foreign Languages, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China.
| | | | - Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos
- Center for Change and Complexity in Learning, The University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia
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Germain N, Gonzalez-Barrero AM, Byers-Heinlein K. Gesture development in infancy: Effects of gender but not bilingualism. INFANCY 2022; 27:663-681. [PMID: 35416417 DOI: 10.1111/infa.12469] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/16/2021] [Revised: 11/22/2021] [Accepted: 03/07/2022] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Gesture is an important communication tool that provides insight into infants' early language and cognitive development and predicts later language skills. While bilingual school-age children have been reported to gesture more than monolinguals, there is a lack of research examining gesture use in infants exposed to more than one language. In this preregistered study, we compared three groups of 14-month-old infants (N = 150) learning French and/or English: bilinguals (hearing a second language at least 25% of the time), exposed (hearing a second language 10%-24% of the time), and monolinguals (hearing one language 90% of the time or more). Parent-reported use of communicative gestures was gathered from the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (CDI). Results showed that the three language groups had similarly sized gesture repertoires, suggesting that language exposure did not affect gesture development at this age. However, a gender effect was found, where girls produced more types of gestures than boys. Overall, these results suggest that gender, but not language exposure, contributes to differences in gesture development in infancy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nathalie Germain
- Department of Psychology, Concordia University, Montreal, Québec, Canada.,Centre for Research on Brain, Language and Music, Montreal, Québec, Canada
| | - Ana Maria Gonzalez-Barrero
- Department of Psychology, Concordia University, Montreal, Québec, Canada.,Centre for Research on Brain, Language and Music, Montreal, Québec, Canada.,School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Faculty of Health, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
| | - Krista Byers-Heinlein
- Department of Psychology, Concordia University, Montreal, Québec, Canada.,Centre for Research on Brain, Language and Music, Montreal, Québec, Canada
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Lüke C, Ritterfeld U, Liszkowski U. In Bilinguals' Hands: Identification of Bilingual, Preverbal Infants at Risk for Language Delay. Front Pediatr 2022; 10:878163. [PMID: 35722488 PMCID: PMC9201278 DOI: 10.3389/fped.2022.878163] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/17/2022] [Accepted: 05/11/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Studies with monolingual infants show that the gestural behavior of 1-2-year-olds is a strong predictor for later language competencies and, more specifically, that the absence of index-finger pointing at 12 months seems to be a valid indicator for risk of language delay (LD). In this study a lack of index-finger pointing at 12 months was utilized as diagnostic criterion to identity infants with a high risk for LD at 24 months in a sample of 42 infants growing up bilingually. Results confirm earlier findings from monolinguals showing that 12-month-olds who point with the extended index finger have an advanced language status at 24 months and are less likely language delayed than infants who only point with the whole hand and do not produce index-finger points at 12 months.
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Affiliation(s)
- Carina Lüke
- Special Education and Therapy in Language and Communication Disorders, Faculty of Human Sciences, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany
| | - Ute Ritterfeld
- Department of Language and Communication, Faculty of Rehabilitation Sciences, TU Dortmund University, Dortmund, Germany
| | - Ulf Liszkowski
- Department of Developmental Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
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Mirski R, Bickhard MH. Conventional minds: An interactivist perspective on social cognition and its enculturation. NEW IDEAS IN PSYCHOLOGY 2021. [DOI: 10.1016/j.newideapsych.2021.100856] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
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