Monday 16th February 2009 News Index

Research in the USA has concluded that children who pickup gesturing from their parents at an early age are more likely to have more complex and diverse vocabulary when they start school. This is particularly important scientists feel as vocabulary at school age, is itself, a strong indicator of future academic success. The researchers are suggesting that gesturing whilst talking greatly helps early speech and develops vocabulary better than just simply talking to children.

It has been known for some time that talking to children from an early ages helps develop their speech and vocabulary but this new research that has specifically identified gesturing as an important factor in vocabulary development. The research went on to discover that parents in low income households use less gesturing than in those of more affluent households and according to the researchers is a key reason for children in less privileged households to not attain the same academic success of those in higher socio demographic groups.

According to one of the researchers, Dr Susan Goldin-Meadow, "It is striking that, in the initial stages of language learning when social economic status differences in children's spoken vocabulary are not yet evident, we see social economic status differences in child gesture use." This may be a key piece of research in years to come to assist the development of speech at an early age.

The video-taped study recorded the interaction of 90 sets of parents and children from a wide range of backgrounds and found that children in the higher socio economic groups. This difference was attributed to the use of gesturing in the family. It is thought that the link between gesturing and vocabulary development could be simply that children make a stronger connection if there is visual and oral communication. The reinforcing action of pointing for example at the same time as talking is cited as an important gesturing action.

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I Think there is something in this as I have noticed that my 1 year old son has picked up on some of the hand gestures i use when i talk to him. I use my hands quite a lot when i talk. I'm quite interested in doing a sign language course to help him express himself more but they seem to be quite expensive so i just make my own up to help him communicate.	angie 26/05/2009

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