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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2013

CARMEN STANFIELD ,
REBECCA WILLIAMSON  and
ŞEYDA ÖZÇALIŞKAN
CARMEN STANFIELD
Affiliation:
Georgia State University
REBECCA WILLIAMSON
Affiliation:
Georgia State University
ŞEYDA ÖZÇALIŞKAN*
Affiliation:
Georgia State University
*
Address for correspondence: Şeyda Özçalişkan, Georgia State University, Department of Psychology, PO Box 5010, Atlanta, GA 30302-5010. tel: (404) 413 6282; e-mail: seyda@gsu.edu
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Abstract

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.

Information

Type
Brief Research Reports
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , March 2014 , pp. 462 - 471
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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Footnotes

[*]

We thank Georgia State University's Area of Focus Initiative: Research on the Challenges of Acquiring Language & Literacy for providing an undergraduate research fellowship to Carmen Stanfield, and the participating families.

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