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Development of Gestures in Early Childhood

Elif Meryem Ünsal
Abstract

Today, study of gestures has surpassed the boundaries of developmental psychology and anthropology and extended to the sphere of language and speech disorders. Gestures do involve an action, however, what is intended is not this action itself, but to represent another action or object (Novack, Wakefield & Goldin-Meadow, 2016). These specific actions named gestures are performed in order to point to people, places or objects; or are aimed to depict actions or physical characteristics of entities (Rowe, Özçalışkan ve Goldin-Meadow, 2008). The former is named deictic gesture and the latter is named iconic gestures. Some of the gestures have culturally defined meanings, and are known as conventional gestures (Özçalışkan ve Hodges, 2017). There are numerous studies investigating the gesture development in populations with typical and atypical language development.  Studies in populations with both typical and atypical language development point to important issues in terms of language and speech therapy. This review aims to include theoretical framework, gesture development in first three years, their relation to language development and implications for language intervention.

At first, it is important to comprehend the theoretical framework underlying gesture research. Gesture research has evolved from the work of the language philosophers, such as Austin, Searle and Grice. Very first studies on gesture development have emerged within the framework of Austin’s Speech Act theory (1967/2017). Austin had classified the speech acts as locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts. Then, in their classical work, Bates and her colleagues (1979) investigated the acquisition of these acts, and concluded that at first, infants perform perlocutionary acts even without the intention to communicate. By 9 months, they begin illocutionary acts with vocalizations, eye contact and gestures. Bates and her colleagues (1979) classified early gestures as proto-imperatives and proto-declaratives, which are still in use as imperative and declarative gestures under the umbrella term of deictic gestures. Later, Tomasello and his colleagues classified declarative gestures further under the influence of Searle’s classification of illocutionary acts and classified them as declarative informative and declarative expressive gestures (Tomasello, 2003; Tomasello, Carpenter, & Liszkowski, 2007). Tomasello and his colleagues (2007) interpreted the early gestures that infants produced as early as 10 months as markers of shared intentionality and cooperation, which are unique cognitive abilities of human-beings compared to apes. Third, Goldin-Meadow (2014; 2015) and her collegues (Iverson & Goldin-Meadow, 2005; Özçalışkan & Goldin-Meadow, 2005a; 2005b; Özçalışkan & Hodges, 2017) embraced a cognitive approach to gestures and they claimed that early gestures are the early signs of children’s readiness for next language and cognitive development stage. Also, gestures serve as facilitators for language development since they enable infants to make adults comment on the objects, places and events in the immediate environment. 

No matter which approach is adopted, it has been consistently shown in the literature that gestures produced in the early period are a powerful predictor of language skills in the future and may even be used to identify children at risk of language delay (Thal, Tobias, & Morrison, 1991; Thal & Tobias 1991; 1994; Iverson & Goldin-Meadow, 2005; Lüke et al., 2017a; 2017b). While deictic gestures show universal features in terms of the age of acquisition and the manner in which they emerged, iconic gestures and conventional gestures carry characteristics that are specific to language and culture. In particular, deictic gestures are an important predictor of subsequent language development. Names of the very first objects that infants point, later added in the early vocabulary within a couple of months (Iverson & Goldin-Meadow, 2005). Also, gesture+word combinations precede the first sentences. Gesture+word combinations later emerge as two-word sentences. However, these gestures which function as words or accompany speech disappear immediately after the words are added in the verbal lexicon or the grammatical structure is acquired (Özçalışkan & Goldin-Meadow, 2005a; 2005b). Also, contrary to popular belief, using gestures do not inhibit children’s later verbal language skills, but facilitate the acquisition of new words and grammatical structures. The use of gestures during the interactions of parents with their children positively affects the outcomes of both the gesture and verbal modality of children. The more parents and children gesture in the infancy, the larger children’s later vocabulary gets (Dimitrova, Özçalışkan, & Adamson, 2016).  

The inclusion of gestures in language assessments will both be effective in identifying groups at risk in terms of language development and will provide information on the status of cognitive skills required for language development. If a client at the beginning of her second year is not using gestures frequently and with communicative intent, she must be assessed thoroughly. Accompanying eye contact and vocalizations must be noted, too. Adding gestures and gesture+word combinations as therapy targets in language interventions will play a positive role in the development of language skills. Parents should be informed about the predictor value of early gestures in terms of language and cognitive development, and be encouraged to label the intended objects, events and places. It is highly recommended to include gestures in the language assessments, and as therapy targets.

Keywords

childhood, communication, gesture, pragmatic development, language

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