A tale of two hands: children's early gesture use in narrative production predicts later narrative structure in speech

Speakers of all ages spontaneously gesture as they talk. These gestures predict children's milestones in vocabulary and sentence structure. We ask whether gesture serves a similar role in the development of narrative skill. Children were asked to retell a story conveyed in a wordless cartoon at...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of child language 2015-05, Vol.42 (3), p.662-681
Main Authors: DEMIR, ÖZLEM ECE, LEVINE, SUSAN C., GOLDIN-MEADOW, SUSAN
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Age Differences
Age Factors
Child
Child Development
Child Language
Child, Preschool
Children
Communication Strategies
Female
Gestures
Hands
Humans
Language acquisition
Language Development
Language Skills
Linguistics
Narration
Narrative structure
Narratives
Nonverbal Communication
Personality
Predictor Variables
Sentence Structure
Speech
Speech Communication
Story Telling
Vocabulary Development
Young Children
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Summary:Speakers of all ages spontaneously gesture as they talk. These gestures predict children's milestones in vocabulary and sentence structure. We ask whether gesture serves a similar role in the development of narrative skill. Children were asked to retell a story conveyed in a wordless cartoon at age five and then again at six, seven, and eight. Children's narrative structure in speech improved across these ages. At age five, many of the children expressed a character's viewpoint in gesture, and these children were more likely to tell better-structured stories at the later ages than children who did not produce character-viewpoint gestures at age five. In contrast, framing narratives from a character's perspective in speech at age five did not predict later narrative structure in speech. Gesture thus continues to act as a harbinger of change even as it assumes new roles in relation to discourse.
ISSN:0305-0009
1469-7602
DOI:10.1017/S0305000914000415