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Edits for Gesture Development edit

My first edit for this page would be to break up the essay and make it "Wikified". My thoughts for what subheadings are as follows: Gesture Development (a timeline of gesture development), deictic gestures (or joint attention), iconic gestures (or representational), and learning (how gestures promote learning). I will be focusing on iconic/representational gestures, Bu I have collected a number of sources that can help with other group members.

Iconic

At age 10 to 24 months of age, children produce deictic and non-deictic gestures[1]. Iconic gestures are usually from their parents, where they are copying what they see their parents do. There is an increase of iconic gesturing from age 26 month and on. 2-year-old are able to create novel iconic gestures that were meant to inform someone. Children’s iconic gestures were almost always accompanied by speech.

Development

Gestures help the transition children develop from one to two word utterances[2].During the first half of the second year, gestures make up most of the child’s communication than verbal. This is noticeable at age 16 months. At 20 months the child uses more verbal communication than gestural communication. Two word utterances at this age are most commonly one gesture and one word. Two word utterances increased from 16 months to 20 months. Verbal and gestural communicative systems doesn’t develop into separate systems. Neurons involved with controlling the hands and the face overlap. Gestures don’t necessarily precede vocal communication, they could appear at the same time or different times. Children from 2-7, deictic gestures were the most common gestures produced, but representational gestures were also produced. Almost all representational gestures were to demonstrate action. There is a decrease of gesture use as the lexicon increases, but there is an increase in gestures in spontaneous interactions, narration, and problem-solving tasks.

The two developmental stages:

1. “Gestural advantage” helps child in constructing meaning and expression of meaning. Gestures may be produced alone without speech, or a combination with speech 2. Gestures are linked to language growth. Long strings of words and pragmatic gestures.

2. Gestures are linked to language growth. Long strings of words and pragmatic gestures. 

Gesturing lightens the cognitive load of the speaker[3]. Children who mismatch speech-gesture show that they have the information, but don’t know how to say it. Mismatch shows that the child is ready to learn. When children were told to gesture on a difficult math problem, the child was able to solve the math problem.The body can help form new memories. If a child is demonstrating delayed gesturing, then they might exhibit delayed vocabulary as well.

Gullberg, M. (2010). Gestures in language development. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Pub. Co.

Still waiting for the book to come in.

  1. ^ Behne, Tanya (2014). "Young children create iconic gestures to inform others". Developmental Psychology. doi:dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0037224. {{cite journal}}: Check |doi= value (help)
  2. ^ Capirci, Olga; Volterra, Virginia. "Gesture and speech: The emergence and development of a strong and changing partnership". Gesture. 8 (1): 22–44. doi:10.1075/gest.8.1.04cap.
  3. ^ Goldin-Meadow, Susan (2009-08-01). "How Gesture Promotes Learning Throughout Childhood". Child Development Perspectives. 3 (2): 106–111. doi:10.1111/j.1750-8606.2009.00088.x. ISSN 1750-8606. PMC 2835356. PMID 20228883.