Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Language Development

Language Development

Children master language quickly and with relative ease, supported by both biological predisposition and reinforcement. B. F. Skinner (1957) proposed that language is learned through reinforcement, while Noam Chomsky (1965) argued that language acquisition mechanisms are biologically determined.
The critical period for language acquisition suggests that the ability to acquire language is at its peak early in life. As people age, this proficiency decreases. Language development begins very...

Piaget's Stage 1 of Cognitive Development

Piaget's Stage 1 of Cognitive Development

The sensorimotor stage, the initial phase of Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development, spans the first two years of a child's life. During this period, infants actively engage with their surroundings, building cognitive awareness through direct interaction with the world. This interaction is primarily based on sensory perception and motor actions, allowing infants to gradually understand basic physical properties and predict how objects interact within their environment.
Exploration...

Piaget's Stage 2 of Cognitive Development

Piaget's Stage 2 of Cognitive Development

The preoperational stage, the second of Jean Piaget's four stages of cognitive development, spans approximately ages 2 to 7 and is characterized by the emergence of symbolic thinking. During this stage, children use language, images, and symbols to represent objects and concepts, enabling them to engage in imaginative and pretend play. This symbolic thinking supports children's ability to perform make-believe actions, such as imagining a broom as a horse or their hand as a phone, blending...

Piaget's Stage 3 of Cognitive Development

Piaget's Stage 3 of Cognitive Development

During Piaget's concrete operational stage, from ages 7 to 11, children exhibit a marked increase in logical thinking skills, specifically in relation to tangible, real-world events. This stage is characterized by the development of several essential cognitive concepts, including conservation, reversibility, and classification, all of which support the child's evolving capacity for structured thought.
Conservation and Constancy of Quantity
A significant cognitive milestone in the concrete...

Piaget's Stage 4 of Cognitive Development

Piaget's Stage 4 of Cognitive Development

The formal operational stage, as described in Piaget's cognitive development theory, begins around age 11 and extends into adulthood. It marks the emergence of advanced cognitive abilities that differentiate adolescent and adult thinking from those of younger children. This stage is characterized by abstract reasoning, hypothetical-deductive reasoning, and a more complex understanding of self and others.
Abstract Reasoning and Hypothetical-Deductive Thinking
Unlike the concrete operational...

The Nativist Approach

The Nativist Approach

The nativist approach to infant cognitive development proposes that infants are born with inherent knowledge structures that allow them to interpret the world almost immediately. This perspective contrasts with earlier developmental theories, such as those proposed by Jean Piaget, which emphasized a more gradual acquisition of cognitive abilities through interaction with the environment. One key concept in this approach is object permanence — the understanding that objects continue to exist...

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

The effect of semantic representation on toddlers' word retrieval.

Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR·2006

Same author

Genetic and environmental interactions in determining the early lexicon: evidence from a set of tri-zygotic quadruplets.

Journal of child language·2004

Same author

Gesture development: a review for clinical and research practices.

Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR·2004

Same author

Semantic representation and naming in children with specific language impairment.

Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR·2002

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 14, 2026

Examining Gesture Production in the Presence of Communication Challenges

Examining Gesture Production in the Presence of Communication Challenges

Published on: January 26, 2024

Tapping toddlers' evolving semantic representation via gesture.

Nina C Capone¹

¹Department of Speech-Language Pathology, School of Graduate Medical Education, Seton Hall University, 400 South Orange Avenue, Alfieri Hall, Room 33, South Orange, NJ 07079, USA. caponeni@shu.edu

Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research : JSLHR

|June 1, 2007

Summary

Toddlers use gestures to express and understand word meanings. This research shows gesture offers insights into children

More Related Videos

Quantifying Learning in Young Infants: Tracking Leg Actions During a Discovery-learning Task

Quantifying Learning in Young Infants: Tracking Leg Actions During a Discovery-learning Task

Published on: June 1, 2015

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jul 14, 2026

Examining Gesture Production in the Presence of Communication Challenges

Examining Gesture Production in the Presence of Communication Challenges

Published on: January 26, 2024

Quantifying Learning in Young Infants: Tracking Leg Actions During a Discovery-learning Task

Quantifying Learning in Young Infants: Tracking Leg Actions During a Discovery-learning Task

Published on: June 1, 2015

Area of Science:

Developmental Psychology
Linguistics
Cognitive Science

Background:

Understanding toddlers' semantic development is crucial.
Oral language skills can be unreliable indicators of knowledge in young children.
Gesture is increasingly recognized as a key component of early communication.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate gesture as a means of understanding toddlers' semantic representations.
To explore the relationship between gesture, speech, and learning states in toddlers.
To determine if gesture can serve as an indicator of embodied knowledge.

Main Methods:

Utilized data from a prior toddler word learning study (Capone & McGregor, 2005).
Administered an object function probe after one and three object exposures.
Analyzed toddlers' gestures and gesture-speech combinations based on instruction and time.

Main Results:

A significant proportion of toddlers produced gestures.
Toddlers' gestures were predominantly iconic and deictic, with a higher rate of iconic gestures than previously documented.
Gesture-speech combinations reflected toddlers' learning status, similar to findings in older children.

Conclusions:

Gesture serves as both a source and expression of semantic knowledge.
Gesture offers a valuable method for assessing toddlers' understanding when language skills are limited.
Embodied cognition may underpin the observed use of gesture in semantic representation.