Early Child Gesture Show Important Link To School Preparedness - Differences Discovered Based On Social Economic Status

Children who convey more meanings with gestures at age 14 months have much larger vocabularies at 54 months than children who convey fewer meanings and are accordingly better prepared for school, according to research at the University of Chicago published in the journal Science on Friday, Feb. 13.

The research showed that the differences particularly favored children from higher-income families with well-educated parents and may help explain the disadvantages some children from low-income families face upon entering school, said Susan-Goldin Meadow, who co-authored the study with fellow psychologist Meredith Rowe.

"Vocabulary is a key predictor of school success and is a primary reason why children from low-income families enter school at a greater risk of failure than their peers from advantaged families," said Goldin-Meadow, the Beardsley Ruml Distinguished Service Professor in Psychology at the University and a leading expert on gesture.

Baby Sign language - Babies Can Learn Words as Early as 10 Months

Although scholars have realized that families of higher income and education levels talk more with their children and speak to them in complex sentences, the new study is the first to connect gesture, vocabulary and school preparedness.

To study the differences in gesture among families, Goldin-Meadow and Rowe, a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University, studied 50 Chicago-area families from diverse economic backgrounds. Their results are reported in the Science article, "Differences in Early Gesture Explain SES Disparities in Child Vocabulary Size at School Entry," for which Rowe is lead author.

They recorded video of children and primary caregivers for 90-minute sessions during ordinary activities at home. The researchers found that differences in gesture appeared early among children; moreover, differences in child gesture could be traced to differences in parent gesture.

Babies exposed to sign language babble with their hands
Baby sign language works by teaching basic concepts like eat, milk, bathroom, all done and more. Learn Signs
Their vocal cords aren't developed yet, edit, but they know what they want to say, and they know what they need. Parents can teach their infants starting at about six months associating things and actions, with signs

"It is striking that, in the initial stages of language learning when SES (socioeconomic status) differences in children's spoken vocabulary are not yet evident, we see SES differences in child gesture use," Rowe said. "Children typically do not begin gesturing until around 10 months. Thus, SES differences are evident a mere four months, and possibly even sooner, after the onset of child gesture production."

Fourteen-month-old children from high-income, well-educated families used gesture to convey an average of 24 different meanings during the 90-minute session, while children from lower-income families conveyed only 13. Once in school, students from higher-income families had a comprehension vocabulary of 117 (as measured by a standardized test), compared to 93 for children from lower-income families.

Some of the robust differences in child vocabulary development at 54 months are likely to come from parents in higher-income groups using gesture to communicate more different meanings when their children were 14 months, the paper said.

The paper did not examine the specific nature of the relationship between early child gesture and later child vocabulary. "Child gesture could play an indirect role in word learning by eliciting timely speech from parents; for example, in response to her child's point at the doll, mother might say, 'yes, that's a doll,' thus providing a word for the object that is the focus of the child's attention," the authors write.

The connection also may be more direct, since gestures allow children to use their hands to express meanings when they have difficulty forming words for them.

Whatever the mechanism, the scholars contend that encouraging gesture among parents and children learning to speak and could boost vocabulary and better prepare children for school.

Source: William Harms
University of Chicago


When toddlers point a lot, more words will follow

This undated handout photo provided by the journal Science shows gesturing child. Don't just talk to you toddler, gestures, too. Pointing\, waving bye-bye and other natural gestures seem to boost a budding vocabulary. [Agencies]

WASHINGTON – Don't just talk to your toddler — gesture, too. Pointing, waving bye-bye and other natural gestures seem to boost a budding vocabulary. Scientists found those tots who could convey more meaning with gestures at age 14 months went on to have a richer vocabulary as they prepared to start kindergarten. And intriguingly, whether a family is poor or middle class plays a role, the researchers report Friday.

Anyone who's ever watched a tot perform the arms-raised "pick me up now" demand knows that youngsters figure out how to communicate well before they can talk.

HAND AND SPEECH
NATIONAL CHILDREN'S FOLKSONG REPOSITORY Explains How gestures, hand clapping and hooting led to social bonding.
Gesturing also seems to be an important precursor to forming sentences, as children start combining one word plus a gesture for a second word.
The researchers found an income gap with gesturing even in toddlerhood, when children speak few words. Higher-income parents did gesture more and, more importantly, their children on average produced 25 meanings in gesture during that 90-minute session, compared with an average of 13 among poorer children, they reported in the journal Science. The study doesn't prove gesturing leads to better word-learning, but it's a strong hint. Now scientists wonder if encouraging low-income parents to gesture more could translate to toddlers who do, too, and in turn improve school readiness.

University of Chicago researchers wondered if gesturing also played a role in a serious problem: Children from low-income families start school with smaller vocabularies than their better-off classmates. It's a gap that tends to persist as the students age. In fact, kindergarten vocabulary is a predicter of how well youngsters ultimately fare in school.

One big key to a child's vocabulary is how their parents talked to them from babyhood on. Previous research has shown that higher-income, better-educated parents tend to talk and read more to small children, and to use more varied vocabulary and complex syntax.

Do those parents also gesture more as they talk with and teach their children?

To see, university psychology researchers Susan Goldin-Meadow and Meredith Rowe visited the homes of 50 Chicago-area families of varying socioeconomic status who had 14-month-olds. They videotaped for 90 minutes to count both parents' and children's words and gestures. Quantity aside, they also counted whether children made gestures with specific meanings.

This is not baby sign-language; parents weren't formally training their tots. Instead, they used everyday gestures to point something out or illustrate a concept.

A child points to a dog and mom says, "Yes, that's a dog." Or dad flaps his arms to mimic flying. Or pointing illustrates less concrete concepts like "up" or "down" or "big."

Then the researchers returned to test vocabulary comprehension at age 4 1/2. The poorer children scored worse, by about 24 points. Researchers blamed mostly socioeconomic status and parents' speech, but said gesturing contributed, too.

It's not just that richer parents gesture more, stressed Peggy McCardle of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, which funded the work.

"It's that there's a greater variety of types of gesture that would signal different types of meaning," McCardle said. "It sure looks like the kids are learning that and it's given them kind of a leg-up."