The co‐development of speech and gesture in children with autism

Abstract

Recent interest in gesture has led to an understanding of the development of gesture and speech in typically developing young children. Research suggests that initially gesture and speech form two independent systems which combine together temporally and semantically before children enter the two-word period of language development. However, little is known about gesture development in children's disordered speech. This paper presents two case studies of young children with autism. The children are under 3 years of age and attend an intervention programme to facilitate their social and communication development. Early indications suggest that whilst both gesture and speech development is delayed in children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD), the developmental trajectory is the same as for typically developing children.

The development of co-speech gesture and its semantic integration with speech in 6- to 12-year-old children with autism spectrum disorders

“…However, very little is known about whether children with ASDs integrate speech and gesture in their speech production. Recently, Sowden et al (2008Sowden et al ( , 2013 conducted two case studies on this question. One study examined the gestures produced by two 2-yearold children with ASDs who had attended an intensive intervention program on social and communicative skills (Sowden et al, 2008).…”

“…Recently, Sowden et al (2008Sowden et al ( , 2013 conducted two case studies on this question. One study examined the gestures produced by two 2-yearold children with ASDs who had attended an intensive intervention program on social and communicative skills (Sowden et al, 2008). They found that after training, only one child produced reinforcing gestures (but not supplementary or disambiguating gestures).…”

“…We hypothesized that (1) children with ASDs would produce fewer types of gestures and gesture less often than TD children, (2) gesture frequency in children with ASDs would be related to the severity of their autism symptoms rather than their language and cognitive skills (Kjellmer et al, 2012), and (3) children with ASDs would be less likely than TD children to produce supplementary cospeech gestures, based on what Sowden et al (2008Sowden et al ( , 2013 found in toddlers. We hypothesized that the difficulty in producing supplementing co-speech gesture would carry on until later childhood among children with ASDs.…”

“…One suggestion is that children with ASDs simply have delayed, but otherwise typical gesture development (Sowden et al, 2008). Speech and gestural production are two independent systems in early language development.…”

“…Speech and gestural production are two independent systems in early language development. Children with ASDs may not automatically learn to integrate these two systems as they age, but may be taught to do so through intervention (Sowden et al, 2008). Another possibility is that children with ASDs have difficulty with sensorimotor coordination between hands and mouth (Iverson, 2010), which may cause difficulty in the integration of speech and gestures.…”