The Impact of Gestures on Language Acquisition

Gestures play a central role in the development of language. 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. Being encouraged, early on, to use gestures causes a rapid onset of vocal language and a larger vocabulary. [Goodwyn 2000] [Ozacaliskan 2005] Gestures not only compliment language development but also enhance the child’s ability to communicate . 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 1988] [Goodwyn 2000] [Ozacaliskan 2005] When telling a story, along with streams of sounds there is a variety of spontaneous hand gestures. Gestures allow the speaker to convey a message or thought that is not easily expressed through verbal language. The use of gesture can be seen early in the development of children. The production of gestures preceded the use of verbal communication.

The use of gestures paves the way for learning speech. [Namy 1988] Before a child can vocalize, they have the ability to understand language and communicate through deictic and iconic gestures. Early on, children use deictic gestures, which are seen around 10 months old, and consist of pointing to or holding things up. Iconic gestures are used by children at 11 to 12 months old, and captures the features of it referents. [Ozacaliskan 2005] Iconic gestures convey predicate information, like punching the air to refer to fighting. According to Ozcaliskan & Goldin-Meadow (2004), at 14 months old, children use a vast majority of gestures that are usually produced along with verbal communication. At 18 months olds 50% percent of children’s speech is accompanied by gestures, although their word production is readily improving. The ways in which gestures are used are an indication of the developmental or conceptual ability of children. [Iverson 2005] In the early development of language, gestures are used to convey information that is not in verbal communication. At an early age gestures are used to fill communicative gaps. However, later on they are used to compliment verbal language.

Most would argue that encouraging children to express themselves symbolically instead of verbally would result in their inability to develop language at a normal rate. In fact, results suggest it is quite the opposite. Symbolic gesturing yields positive rather than negative effects on learning to talk. In the absence of language, encouraging the use of gestures will not delay the verbal ability of children; the experience of gesturing has a facilitative effect on early syntactical development. Gesturing facilitates and enriches the relationship between parent and child. Between 9 months and 18 months, the child wants to communicate with the parent but does not have the vocal ability and the parents have to figure out what message the child is trying to convey. [Goodwyn 2000] It is during this time that gesturing becomes important. For example, a mother is bathing her 18 months daughter, she checks to make sure that the running water is not to hot, as she is bathing the child, the child’s hand hit the facet and turns the hot water up. The child quickly makes the gesture for hot and the mother swiftly checks the running water to see if the water is to hot and turns it down. Or the child quickly tries to communicate with the mother that the water is getting hot, the mother not understanding the child interprets the child’s excitement as not liking the water. The mother continues to bathe the child in water whose temperature is increasing by the minute. In fact, those children whose parents actively promoted the use of gesture vocabulary developed a broader verbal vocabulary at the onset of verbal communication than those parents that push their children to communicate verbally. Gestures are also seen as setting the stage for joint attention, when a child uses a gesture to refer to or point to something the parent usually gives the child the name for the object and the conversation is focused on the object of interest to the child causing the child to retain the information According to Vgot (2001), nonverbal communication generates a greater amount of words 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.

Citations

References

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