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Published on: April 28, 2016
Gesture and early bilingual development
E Nicoladis1, R I Mayberry, F Genesee
1Department of Psychology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Developmental Psychology
|March 19, 1999
Summary
Bilingual children
Area of Science:
- Developmental linguistics
- Child language acquisition
- Gesture studies
Background:
- Bilingualism presents unique challenges and opportunities for child development.
- Understanding the interplay between language and gesture is crucial for cognitive science.
- Longitudinal studies offer deep insights into developmental trajectories.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the longitudinal relationship between speech and gestural proficiency in bilingual children.
- To examine the influence of language proficiency on gestural development.
- To explore the connection between language development and specific gesture types.
Main Methods:
- Longitudinal study tracking 5 French-English bilingual boys from 2 to 3.5 years.
- Data collected at 6-month intervals to observe developmental changes.
- Analysis focused on gesture production rate, co-speech gestures, and gesture meaning relative to language proficiency.
Main Results:
- Children exhibited adult-like gesture production rates and meaning from 2 years onward.
- Iconic and beat gestures showed language-specific development linked to mean utterance length.
- Pointing gestures did not display the same language-dependent developmental pattern.
Conclusions:
- The development of iconic and beat gestures appears more closely tied to language development than pointing gestures.
- Language proficiency and developmental stage significantly influence specific types of gestural communication in bilingual children.
- Findings contribute to understanding the intricate relationship between linguistic and gestural systems in early development.
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