Gesturing in mother-child interactions

Pointing and talk by low-income mothers and their 14-month-old children

“…More specifically, the proportion of maternal utterances accompanied by the pointing gesture in this study (10%) is very similar to findings from other studies (Iverson et al, 1999;Shatz, 1982), yet in the current study there was a range from 1 to 32 percent, more variability than was found in previous research with middle to upper-middle class samples. In addition, the fact that the majority of maternal points were used to reinforce the message found in speech replicates the findings by Iverson and colleagues in their upper-middle class Italian sample.…”

“…When children did talk while pointing, the talk itself was frequently unintelligible. Paralleling findings by Iverson and colleagues (1999), the majority of maternal points in the present study were used to reinforce or disambiguate the message conveyed in speech rather than to supplement the verbal message with additional information, as is often found in gesture use between adults (McNeil 1992 cited in Iverson et. al., 1999).…”

“…Codes used to specify communicative intent of point: Table 1 Description of codes adapted from Iverson et al, (1999) %gpx: CHI points at toy elephant * This code was added to the system for this study Table 2 Measures of pointing, talk, CDI, and maternal education (n=45). Table 4 Bivariate estimated correlations between maternal and child pointing and talk (n=45).…”

“…One study, however, by Bekken (1989, cited in McNeil, 1992 found that mothers adjusted their gestures in interaction with young children by using primarily concrete deictic gestures instead of the broad range of gestures (e.g., deictic, iconic, metaphoric) they used with other adults. In another study, among a sample of 12 Italian upper-middle class dyads (Iverson, Capirci, Longobardi, & Caselli, 1999), Iverson and colleagues found that "mothers appear to be using a kind of 'gestural motherese' characterized by fewer and more concrete gestures redundant with and reinforcing the message conveyed in speech (p.19)." That is, maternal gestures directed to young children do not typically add information to speech, in contrast to gestures frequently found in adult-adult interactions (McNeil, 1992).…”

When Gesture Is and Is Not Language

“…Children's Hearing parents gesture when they talk to young children (Bekken 1989;Shatz 1982;Iverson, Capirci, Longobardi, and Caselli 1999), and the hearing parents of our deaf children are no exception. The deaf children's parents were committed to teaching them to talk and therefore talked to their children as often as they could.…”