ERIC Number: EJ1485680
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2023-May
Pages: 23
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0305-0009
EISSN: EISSN-1469-7602
Available Date: 0000-00-00
Can Gesture Input Support Toddlers' Fast Mapping?
Lori G. Foran1; Brenda L. Beverly1; John Shelley-Tremblay1; Julie M. Estis1
Journal of Child Language, v50 n3 p662-684 2023
Forty-eight toddlers participated in a word-learning task to assess gesture input on mapping nonce words to unfamiliar objects. Receptive fast mapping and expressive naming for target object-word pairs were tested in three conditions -- with a point, with a shape gesture, and in a no-gesture, word-only condition. No statistically significant effect of gesture for receptive fast-mapping was found but age was a factor. Two year olds outperformed one year olds for both measures. Only one girl in the one-year-old group correctly named any items. There was a significant interaction between gesture and gender for expressive naming. Two-year-old girls were six times more likely than two-year-old boys to correctly name items given point and shape gestures; whereas, boys named more items taught with the word only than with a point or shape gesture. The role of gesture input remains unclear, particularly for children under two years and for toddler boys.
Descriptors: Child Language, Nonverbal Communication, Toddlers, Language Acquisition, Cognitive Mapping, Naming, Gender Differences
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: 1University of South Alabama, Mobile, USA

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