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Comprehension and production of gesture in combination with speech in one-word speakers*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Marolyn Morford  and
Susan Goldin-Meadow
Marolyn Morford*
Affiliation:
The University of Chicago
Susan Goldin-Meadow*
Affiliation:
The University of Chicago
*
11704 Newbridge Court, Reston, VA 22091, USA
University of Chicago, Department of Psychology, 5730 South Woodlawn Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
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Abstract

This study explores the role that gesture plays in the earliest stages of language learning. We describe how one-word speakers use gesture in combination with speech in their spontaneous communications, and interpret gesture presented in combination with speech in an experimental situation. Forty one-word speakers (ages 1;2.22 to 2;4.6) were videotaped in a free-play session which provided data on the child's spontaneous gesture and speech production. The children were also given a comprehension task in which the presence and absence of gesture were systematically varied in relation to speech. We found that (1) all of the children spontaneously produced gestures in combination with speech, and (2) all of the children were able to understand gesture when it was presented in combination with speech, not only when the gesture was redundant with speech but also when the gesture substituted for speech. These data suggest that, even at this young age, gesture naturally forms an integrated system with speech in both production and comprehension.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , October 1992 , pp. 559 - 580
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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Footnotes

*

This work was supported in part by a grant from the Smart Foundation. The authors thank the Department of Child Psychiatry at the University of Chicago and the Social Sciences Computer Laboratory at Elon College, North Carolina, for technical support provided for the research project, and Bennett Leventhal, Susan Levine, Marilyn Shatz and Jim Stigler for their particularly helpful comments on the project at various stages of its development.

References

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