Document Type
Article
Publication Date
5-15-2017
Publication Title
Child Development
Volume
89
Issue
3
Pages
245-260
Abstract
Gestures, hand movements that accompany speech, affect children's learning, memory, and thinking (e.g., Goldin‐Meadow, 2003). However, it remains unknown how children distinguish gestures from other kinds of actions. In this study, 4‐ to 9‐year‐olds (n = 339) and adults (n = 50) described one of three scenes: (a) an actor moving objects, (b) an actor moving her hands in the presence of objects (but not touching them), or (c) an actor moving her hands in the absence of objects. Participants across all ages were equally able to identify actions on objects as goal directed, but the ability to identify empty‐handed movements as representational actions (i.e., as gestures) increased with age and was influenced by the presence of objects, especially in older children.
Recommended Citation
Wakefield, Elizabeth M.; Novack, Miriam A.; and Goldin-Meadow, Susan. Unpacking the Ontogeny of Gesture Understanding: How Movement Becomes Meaningful Across Development. Child Development, 89, 3: 245-260, 2017. Retrieved from Loyola eCommons, Psychology: Faculty Publications and Other Works, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12817
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Copyright Statement
© The Authors 2017
Comments
Author Posting. © The Authors 2017. This article is posted here by permission of the Society for Research in Child Development, Inc. for personal use, not for redistribution. The article was published in Child Development, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12817