User talk:Dbrady46
Gestures are important in language acquisition. Gestures present early in development, and are used to communicate before the child’s ability to vocalize. Once the child has the ability to speak, gestures are used to express the thoughts that are not expressed vocally; eventually, gestures compliment vocalized ideas (Ozcaliskan & Goldin-Meadow, 2005; Goodwyn, Acredolo, & Brown, 2000; Ozcaliskan & Goldin-Meadow, 2004). Being encourage, early on, to use gestures is causes a rapid onset of vocal language and a larger vocabulary (Goodwyn, Acredolo, & Brown, 2000). Gestures not only compliments language development but enhances the child’s ability to communicate (Goldin-Meadow, 2005; Goodwyn, Acredolo, & Brown, 2000; Ozcaliskan & Goldin-Meadow, 2004).
Gestures play a central role in the development of language. Communication usually consists of a blend of verbal and non verbal transmission of information. Language development has been used to refer exclusively to the development of verbal language (Acredolo & Goodwyn, 1988; Goodwyn & Acredolo, 1993; Goodwyn, Acredolo, & Brown, 2000; Ozcaliskan & Goldin-Meadow, 2004). When telling a story, along with streams of sounds there are a variety of spontaneous hand gestures (Ozcaliskan & Goldin-Meadow, 2004). Gestures allow the speaker to convey a message or thought that is not easily expressed through verbal language (Ozcaliskan & Goldin-Meadow, 2004). The use of gesture can be seen early in the development of children (Goodwyn, Acredolo, & Brown, 2000; Ozcaliskan & Goldin-Meadow, 2004). The production of gestures preceded the use of verbal communication (Goodwyn, Acredolo, & Brown, 2000; Ozcaliskan & Goldin-Meadow, 2004).
The use of gestures paves the way for learning speech, before a child can vocalize they have the ability to understand language and communicate through gestures, deictic and iconic (Namy, L. L., & Waxman, S. R, 1988). In the early age children use deictic gestures, which are seen around 10 months old, pointing or holding things up and iconic gestures, seen at 11 to 12 months old, which captures the features of it referents (Ozcaliskan & Goldin-Meadow, 2005; Ozcaliskan & Goldin-Meadow, 2004; Namy, L. L., & Waxman, S. R, 1998). Iconic gestures convey predicate information, like punching the air to refer to fighting (Ozcaliskan & Goldin-Meadow, 2004). According to Ozcaliskan & Goldin-Meadow (2004), a vast majority of gestures produced along with verbal communication at 14 months old. At 18 months olds 50% percent of children’s speech is accompanied by gestures, even with a greater ability to produced words. The way in which gesture are used are indication of the developmental or conceptual ability of children (Ozcaliskan & Goldin-Meadow, 2005; Ozcaliskan & Goldin-Meadow, 2004; Namy, L. L., & Waxman, S. R, 1998). In the early development of language gestures are used to convey information that is not in verbal communication. At an early age gesture are used to fill the communicative gaps, however, later on they are used to compliment verbal language (Goldin-Meadow, 2005; Ozcaliskan & Goldin-Meadow, 2004).
Most would argue that by not encouraging children to express themselves verbally instead of symbolically the child will not develop language at a normal rate, but in fact, it is quite the opposite. Symbolic gesturing yields positive rather than negative effects on learning to talk (Goodwyn, Acredolo, & Brown, 2000). Encouraging the use of gestures to communication, in the absences of language, will not delay the verbal ability of children; the experience of gesturing has a facilitative effect on early syntactical development (Goodwyn, Acredolo, & Brown, 2000; Iverson, & Goldin-Meadow, 2005). Gesturing facilitates and enriches the relationship between parents. There is a time, between 9 months and 18 months, were the child wants to communicate with the parent but does not have the vocal ability and the parents has to figure out what message the child is trying to convey. It is during this time that gesturing becomes important; Goodwyn, Acredolo, & Brown (2000) gave some example of why communication is important: 1. “A 16-month-old, who awoke crying in the night, was able to point and use his afraid gesture (patting his chest) to let his mother know he was afraid of the clown doll on his dresser. Without the gesture, she might have put the doll in bed with him! 2. A 13-month-old excitedly produced his crocodile gesture while being strolled through the shopping mall. Mom let him out of the stroller and he toddled back to the store they had just passed and pointed to the Izod insignias on the racks of men's shirts. 3. A 14-month-old was able to use his hot gesture (blowing hard) to let his mother know when food was too hot, when his bath water was too hot, and even when the sidewalk at the pool was too hot.”
In fact, those children whose parents actively promoted the use of gesture vocabulary were larger at the onset of verbal communication than those parents that push their children to communicate verbally (Goodwyn, Acredolo, & Brown, 2000). Gestures are also seen as setting the stage for joint attention, when a child uses a gesture to refer to or point at something the parent usually give the child the name for the object and the conversation is focused on object of interest to the child causing the child to retain the information (Goodwyn & Acredolo, 1988; Goodwyn, Acredolo, & Brown, 2000). According to Vgot (2001), nonverbal communication produces more information and promotes fast learning, however, it is dependent on the parents’ ability to understand the gestures and give a positive response to the use of gestures (Acredolo & Goodwyn, 1988; Goodwyn & Acredolo, 1993)
References
Acredolo, L. P., & Goodwyn, S. W. (1988). Symbolic gesturing in normal infant. Child Development, 59, 450 – 466. Goodwyn, S. W., & Acredolo, L. P. (1993). Symbolic gesture versus words: Is there a modality advantage for onset of symbol use. Child Development, 34, 688 – 701. Goodwyn, S. W., Acredolo, L. P., & Brown. (2000). Impact of symbolic gesturing on early language development. Journal of Normal Behavior, 24(2), 81 – 102. Iverson, J. M., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2005) Gesture paves the way for language development. Research Report: Psychological Science, 16(5), 367 – 371. Namy, L. L., & Waxman, S. R. (1998). Words and gestures: Infants’ interpretation of different forms of symbolic reference. Child Development, 69(2), 295 – 308. Ozcliskan, S., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2005). Gesture is at the cutting edge of early language development. Cognition, 96, 101 – 113. Ozcliskan, S., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2004). When mothers do not lead their children by the hand. In A. Brugos, L. Micciulla & C. E. Smith (Eds.). Proceedings of the 28th annual boston university conference of language development (pp. 424 – 435). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. Vogt, P. (2001). The impact of non-verbal communication on lexicon formation. In Proceedings of Belgian/Netherlands Artificial Intelligence Conference.
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