1,477 research outputs found
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Differences in Early Gesture Explain SES Disparities in Child Vocabulary Size at School Entry
Children from low–socioeconomic status (SES) families, on average, arrive at school with smaller
vocabularies than children from high-SES families. In an effort to identify precursors to, and
possible remedies for, this inequality, we videotaped 50 children from families with a range of
different SES interacting with parents at 14 months and assessed their vocabulary skills at 54
months. We found that children from high-SES families frequently used gesture to communicate at
14 months, a relation that was explained by parent gesture use (with speech controlled). In turn,
the fact that children from high-SES families have large vocabularies at 54 months was explained
by children’s gesture use at 14 months. Thus, differences in early gesture help to explain the
disparities in vocabulary that children bring with them to school
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Learning words by hand: Gesture's role in predicting vocabulary development
Children vary widely in how quickly their vocabularies grow. Can looking at
early gesture use in children and parents help us predict this variability? We
videotaped 53 English-speaking parent-child dyads in their homes during
their daily activities for 90-minutes every four months between child age 14
and 34 months. At 42 months, children were given the Peabody Picture
Vocabulary Test (PPVT). We found that child gesture use at 14 months was a
significant predictor of vocabulary size at 42 months, above and beyond the
effects of parent and child word use at 14 months. Parent gesture use at 14
months was not directly related to vocabulary development, but did
relate to child gesture use at 14 months which, in turn, predicted
child vocabulary. These relations hold even when background factors such
as socio-economic status are controlled. The findings underscore the
importance of examining early gesture when predicting child vocabulary
development
Assessing knowledge conveyed in gesture: Do teachers have the upper hand?
Children's gestures can reveal important information about their problem-solving strategies. This study investigated whether the information children express only in gesture is accessible to adults not trained in gesture coding. Twenty teachers and 20 undergraduates viewed videotaped vignettes of 12 children explaining their solutions to equations. Six children expressed the same strategy in speech and gesture, and 6 expressed different strategies. After each vignette, adults described the child's reasoning. For children who expressed different strategies in speech and gesture, both teachers and undergraduates frequently described strategies that children had not expressed in speech. These additional strategies could often be traced to the children's gestures. Sensitivity to gesture was comparable for teachers and undergraduates. Thus, even without training, adults glean information, not only from children's words but also from their hands
Children’s spontaneous comparisons from 26 to 58 months predict performance in verbal and non-verbal analogy tests in 6th grade
Comparison supports the development of children’s analogical reasoning. The evidence for this claim comes from laboratory studies. We describe spontaneous comparisons produced by 24 typically developing children from 26 to 58 months. Children tend to express similarity before expressing difference. They compare objects from the same category before objects from different categories, make global comparisons before specific comparisons, and specify perceptual features of similarity/difference before non-perceptual features. We then investigate how a theoretically interesting subset of children’s comparisons – those expressing a specific feature of similarity or difference – relates to analogical reasoning as measured by verbal and non-verbal tests in 6th grade. The number of specific comparisons children produce before 58 months predicts their scores on both tests, controlling for vocabulary at 54 months. The results provide naturalistic support for experimental findings on comparison development, and demonstrate a strong relationship between children’s early comparisons and their later analogical reasoning
People are less susceptible to illusion when they use their hands to communicate rather than estimate
When we use our hands to estimate the length of a stick in the MĂĽller-Lyer illusion, we are highly susceptible to the illusion. But when we prepare to act on sticks under the same conditions, we are significantly less susceptible. Here, we asked whether people are susceptible to illusion when they use their hands not to act on objects but to describe them in spontaneous co-speech gestures or conventional sign languages of the deaf. Thirty-two English speakers and 13 American Sign Language signers used their hands to act on, estimate the length of, and describe sticks eliciting the MĂĽller-Lyer illusion. For both gesture and sign, the magnitude of illusion in the description task was smaller than the magnitude of illusion in the estimation task and not different from the magnitude of illusion in the action task. The mechanisms responsible for producing gesture in speech and sign thus appear to operate not on percepts involved in estimation but on percepts derived from the way we act on objects
Making language around the globe: A cross-linguistic study of homesign in the United States, China, and Turkey
Effects of Time-Varying Parent Input on Children's Language Outcomes Differ for Vocabulary and Syntax
Early linguistic input is a powerful predictor of children's language outcomes. We investigated two novel questions about this relationship: Does the impact of language input vary over time, and does the impact of time-varying language input on child outcomes differ for vocabulary and for syntax? Using methods from epidemiology to account for baseline and time-varying confounding, we predicted 64 children's outcomes on standardized tests of vocabulary and syntax in kindergarten from their parents' vocabulary and syntax input when the children were 14 and 30 months old. For vocabulary, children whose parents provided diverse input earlier as well as later in development were predicted to have the highest outcomes. For syntax, children whose parents' input substantially increased in syntactic complexity over time were predicted to have the highest outcomes. The optimal sequence of parents' linguistic input for supporting children's language acquisition thus varies for vocabulary and for syntax
2014 Dahlberg Award Winner: The effects of dietary toughness on occlusopalatal variation in savanna baboons
This study investigates the relationship between dietary toughness and craniofacial variation in two groups of savanna baboons. Standard craniofacial and malocclusion data were collected from a captive, soft-diet experiment group (n=24) and a sample of wild-captured baboons, raised on tougher, natural foods (n=19). We tested the hypothesis that in the absence of normal masticatory stress experienced during the consumption of wild foods, the captive baboons would exhibit higher levels of facial and dental structural irregularities. Principal component analysis indicates separation of the two samples. The soft-diet sample exhibits significantly shorter palates, greater variability in palate position, and higher frequencies of occlusal irregularities that correlate with the shorter palates. Results offer further support that long-term dietary chewing stresses have a measurable effect on adult craniofacial variation
Cognitive demands of face monitoring: Evidence for visuospatial overload
Young children perform difficult communication tasks better face to face than when they cannot see one another (e.g., Doherty-Sneddon & Kent, 1996). However, in recent studies, it was found that children aged 6 and 10 years, describing abstract shapes, showed evidence of face-to-face interference rather than facilitation. For some communication tasks, access to visual signals (such as facial expression and eye gaze) may hinder rather than help children’s communication. In new research we have pursued this interference effect. Five studies are described with adults and 10- and 6-year-old participants. It was found that looking at a face interfered with children’s abilities to listen to descriptions of abstract shapes. Children also performed visuospatial memory tasks worse when they looked at someone’s face prior to responding than when they looked at a visuospatial pattern or at the floor. It was concluded that performance on certain tasks was hindered by monitoring another person’s face. It is suggested that processing of visual communication signals shares certain processing resources with the processing of other visuospatial information
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