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Put your hands up! Gesturing improves preschoolers' executive function
Candace L Rhoads1, Patricia H Miller1, Gina O Jaeger2
1Department of Psychology, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA 94132, United States.
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
|April 21, 2018
Summary
Preschoolers who gestured while sorting showed improved executive functioning on a card sorting task. This suggests that encouraging children's gesturing may support the development of cognitive skills like task switching.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Development
- Developmental Psychology
- Child Psychology
Background:
- Previous research indicates a correlation between preschoolers' gesturing and executive functioning.
- The causal direction of this relationship remains unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the causal role of gesturing in preschoolers' executive functioning.
- To examine how induced gesturing affects performance on the Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS) task.
Main Methods:
- Fifty preschoolers were divided into a Gesture group (induced gesturing) and a Control group ("think hard").
- Participants completed two DCCS tasks involving sorting by different dimensions.
- Performance was analyzed over trials to observe patterns in both groups.
Main Results:
- The Gesture group exhibited more accurate sorting than the Control group after a dimension switch, especially younger children on the second task.
- The frequency of gesturing positively predicted sorting accuracy in younger children on the second task.
- A delayed benefit of gesturing was observed in younger children, suggesting a potential utilization deficiency.
Conclusions:
- Induced gesturing causally enhances executive functioning in preschoolers' sorting tasks.
- Gesturing may play a crucial role in the development of executive functions, including task switching.
- Findings suggest future research into the interplay between gesture, thought, and executive function development.