Understanding Gestures Influence on Language Development
Children’s communication begins with gestures, as they communicate to you that they would like more or really don’t like something you can communicate with your little one before they are talking. Gesture use has been found to not only succeed spoken language but be uniquely fundamental part of language. As children’s gesture use becomes more complicated we are able to predict when a child may begin to use two word sentences and later language use. Equally mothers gesture use supports children’s language development.
Learning to Talk in a Gesture-Rich World: Early Communication in Italian VS. American Children
Iverson, J. M., Capirci, O., Volterra, V. & Goldwin-Meadow, S. 2008
Gesturing in Mother-Child Interactions
Iverson, J. M., Capirci, O., Longobardi, E., Caselli, M. C. 1999