A microgenetic analysis of the relationship between speech and gesture in children: Evidence for semantic and temporal asynchrony

We present a microgenetic analysis of the gestures that children produce as they talk about a balance task. Children gesture spontaneously on this task and here their hand gestures are considered in relation to the accompanying speech. By close examination of 21 children's single sessions, and...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Language and cognitive processes 2007-03, Vol.22 (2), p.234-246
Main Authors: Pine, Karen J., Lufkin, Nicola, Kirk, Elizabeth, Messer, David
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biological and medical sciences
Child
Child development
Children
Cognitive Processes
Developmental psychology
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Language
Nonverbal Communication
Production and perception of spoken language
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Schemata (Cognition)
Semantics
Speech Communication
Task Analysis
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Summary:We present a microgenetic analysis of the gestures that children produce as they talk about a balance task. Children gesture spontaneously on this task and here their hand gestures are considered in relation to the accompanying speech. By close examination of 21 children's single sessions, and the 163 iconic gestures they produced (a mean of 7.6 gestures per child), it was found that gestures are rarely produced without speech. However, one third of the gestures the children produced conveyed different information to that expressed in their spoken explanations. Furthermore, children were found to convey information uniquely in gesture by expressing ideas in the manual modality that did not appear in their spoken explanations. Finally, in many cases children expressed an idea in gesture before they talked about it. These data suggest that gestures are integrally linked to the child's thinking and are an important and illuminating means of externalising cognition.
ISSN:0169-0965
1464-0732
DOI:10.1080/01690960600630881