Mother's mimic: The use of gestures by parents appears to increase the use of gestures in their children and these differences can be seen as early as 14 months, say researchers.
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CHICAGO: The use of gesturing by parents as they speak to their children may help to explain wealth-linked disparities in the development of a child's later verbal abilities, says a new study.
The use of gestures by parents appears to increase the use of gestures in their children and these differences can be seen as early as 14 months, according to Susan Goldin-Meadow, a psychologist at the University of Chicago in the USA.
Better communication
"The act of gesturing may change children's minds [and the ways they learn] by encouraging them to move their hands in meaningful ways," said Goldin-Meadow, who presented the findings today at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's (AAAS) annual meeting in Chicago.
According to her team, parents of higher socioeconomic status tend to use more gestures as they speak to their babies and toddlers, possibly leading to better communication skills as their children develop.
The study suggests that the use of gestures may encourage learning by helping children attach names to objects. "If a child points at something and mom says, 'That's a glass,' that's reinforcement; it's creating a learning environment," said Goldin-Meadow.
"Gestures are different from vocabulary because you can use what's at hand when you don't have that word," she said. "There is no right or wrong answer in gesturing and it reflects knowledge that children don't always express."
Useful predictor
For the study, the researchers taped 50 children and their interactions with caregivers at home over periods of 90 minutes. The subjects included families from a broad socioeconomic and educational range. The results showed that the use of gestures in children at 14 months of age was a good predictor of range of vocabulary in those children at four and a half years of age.
Children appear to be imitating their parents, said Meredith Rowe another psychologist at the University of Chicago. But she was surprised to find that families of higher socioeconomic status used more gestures than families of low socioeconomic Status. Previous research had suggested that low-status families rely more strongly on gesture to make up for a smaller vocabulary, she said.
Martha Alibali studies cognitive development at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was not involved in the research. The results are "provocative," she said. "These findings are exciting because they suggest possible ways to facilitate word learning in young children. It seems potentially easy, and inexpensive, to encourage parents to increase their use of gestures."
The study was also published today in the U.S. journal Science.
Orton-Gillingham method of language acquisition
This is an excellent article about teaching language to children.
It is something the families of dyslexic children have known for decades. The Orton-Gillingham Multisensory Method of language instruction has been in use since the 1930s and is one of the few methods (if not the only method) shown to work for dyslexics.
Words and phrases are accentuated by gestures and other visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic cues.
It is not surprising that what works for dyslexic children would work for the general population.