Motoric characteristics of representational gestures produced by young children in a naming task*

ABSTRACT This study explores the form of representational gestures produced by forty-five hearing children (age range 2 ; 0–3 ; 1) asked to label pictures in words. Five pictures depicting objects and five pictures depicting actions which elicited more representational gestures were chosen for more detailed analysis. The range of gestures produced for each item varied from 3 to 27 for a total of 128 gestures. Gestures have been analyzed with the same parameters used to describe signs produced by deaf children: handshape, location and movement. Results show that gestures for a given picture exhibit similarities in many of the parameters across children. Some motor characteristics found in the production of hearing toddlers' gestures are similar to those described for early signs. Implications of this similarity between gestural and signed linguistic representations in young children are discussed.

[1]  Christopher J. Moreland,et al.  The Form of Children's Early Signs: Iconic or Motoric Determinants? , 2008 .

[2]  D. McNeill.  Language and Gesture , 2000 .

[3]  Jean Ann,et al.  On the relation between ease of articulation and frequency of occurrence of handshapes in two sign languages , 1996 .

[4]  Onésimo Juncos,et al.  PRIMERAS PALABRAS EN LA LENGUA DE SIGNOS ESPAÑOLA (LSE). ESTRUCTURA FORMAL, SEMÁNTICA Y CONTEXTUAL , 1997 .

[5]  Bencie Woll,et al.  Aphasia in a user of British Sign Language: Dissociation between sign and gesture , 2004, Cognitive neuropsychology.

[6]  E. Pizzuto,et al.  The link (and differences) between deixis and symbols in children’s early gestural-vocal system , 2005 .

[7]  Rachel I. Mayberry,et al.  Sign language acquisition , 2006 .

[8]  G Rosolato,et al.  Symbol formation. , 1978, The International journal of psycho-analysis.

[9]  D. McNeill.  Gesture and Thought , 2005 .

[10]  R. P. Meier.  The Form of Early Signs: Explaining Signing Children’s Articulatory Development , 2010 .

[11]  Rachel I. Mayberry,et al.  Language acquisition by eye , 2000 .

[12]  A. Kendon.  Gesture: Visible Action as Utterance , 2004 .

[13]  Virginia Volterra,et al.  From action to language through gesture: A longitudinal perspective , 2005 .

[14]  Kearsy Cormier,et al.  Prelinguistic Gesture Predicts Mastery and Error in the Production of Early Signs , 2001 .

[15]  M. C. Caselli,et al.  Co-speech gestures in a naming task: Developmental data , 2009, Speech Accompanying-Gesture.

[16]  L. Acredolo,et al.  Impact of Symbolic Gesturing on Early Language Development , 2000 .

[17]  Bencie Woll,et al.  The Linguistics of British Sign Language: An Introduction , 1999 .

[18]  Gary Morgan,et al.  The First Signs of Language: Phonological Development in British Sign Language. , 2007 .

[19]  Denis Burnham,et al.  Comparing action gestures and classifier verbs of motion: evidence from Australian Sign Language, Taiwan Sign Language, and nonsigners' gestures without speech. , 2005, Journal of deaf studies and deaf education.

[20]  Lodenir Becker Karnopp,et al.  Phonology acquisition in Brazilian Sign Language , 2002 .

[21]  Bencie Woll,et al.  Directions in sign language acquisition , 2002 .

[22]  M. Alibali,et al.  Gesture and the process of speech production: We think, therefore we gesture , 2000 .

[23]  Susan Goldin-Meadow,et al.  Language and Gesture: Gesture and the transition from one- to two-word speech: when hand and mouth come together , 2000 .

[24]  K. Pine,et al.  More gestures than answers: children learning about balance. , 2004, Developmental psychology.

[25]  Mario Wiesendanger,et al.  Are There Unifying Structures in the Brain Responsible for Interlimb Coordination , 1994 .

[26]  L. Acredolo,et al.  Sign Language Among Hearing Infants: The Spontaneous Development of Symbolic Gestures , 1990 .

[27]  E. Thelen,et al.  Hand, mouth and brain. The dynamic emergence of speech and gesture , 1999 .

[28]  Olga Capirci,et al.  From communication to language in two modalities , 1994 .

[29]  P. B. Braem.  Acquisition of the Handshape in American Sign Language: A Preliminary Analysis , 1990 .

[30]  J. Fagard.  Manual Strategies and Interlimb Coordination during Reaching, Grasping, and Manipulating throughout the First Year of Life , 1994 .

[31]  Virginia Volterra,et al.  From Gesture to Language in Hearing and Deaf Children , 1990 .

[32]  S. Swinnen.  Interlimb coordination : neural, dynamical, and cognitive constraints , 1994 .

[33]  Susan Goldin-Meadow,et al.  Learning to talk in a gesture-rich world: Early communication in Italian vs. American children , 2008, First language.

[34]  Marina L. McIntire.  The Acquisition of American Sign Language Hand Configurations , 2013 .

[35]  K. Emmorey,et al.  Language, Gesture, and Space. , 1996 .

[36]  Marc Marschark,et al.  Advances in the Sign Language Development of Deaf Children , 2005 .