To Sign or Not to Sign? The Impact of Encouraging Infants to Gesture on Infant Language and Maternal Mind‐Mindedness

Kirk, Elizabeth; Howlett, Neil; Pine, Karen J.; Fletcher, Ben

doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2012.01874.x

Cited by 62 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…The similar results found by Kirk, Howlett, Pine, and Fletcher (2013) for both symbolic gesturing and BSL-based groups imply that infants, if recognizing the signs at all, are not necessarily doing so beyond the routines -they are still context-bound. However, a caveat for BSL-based signs is that, both in studies of baby sign and in parental programmes, they are often stripped of the essential qualities that give them meaning (e.g.…”

supporting

confidence: 83%

How HANDy are baby signs? A commentary on a systematic review of the impact of gestural communication on typically developing, hearing infants under the age of 36 months

Howard

Doherty‐Sneddon

2014

First Language

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The ethos behind provision of early intervention programmes to infants and young children with additional support needs has been established for some time (e.g. Right-from-the-Start), but targeting the development of typically developing infants has been a relatively recent phenomenon. Baby sign is one of the many intervention techniques available, alongside programmes focused on movement, music, massage, multisensory experience, as well as reading specifically to infants and toddlers. Some of these alternatives, like baby sign, make claims regarding cognitive and socio-emotional advancements. However, much of this can be based on anecdote and opinion. This has happened in the case of baby sign.

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supporting

confidence: 83%

How HANDy are baby signs? A commentary on a systematic review of the impact of gestural communication on typically developing, hearing infants under the age of 36 months

Howard

Doherty‐Sneddon

2014

First Language

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“…However, a more recent meta-analysis (Johnston, Durieux-Smith, & Bloom, 2005) that examined several other studies on baby sign training in TD infants questions the generalizability of the positive results from this earlier work largely due to methodological shortcomings (e.g., lack of adequate control/comparison groups, small sample size; see also Paling, 2007). In fact, a more recent baby sign training study with 0;8- to 1;8-year-old infants that addressed most of these methodological issues showed no effect of baby sign training on infants’ subsequent language development (Kirk, Howlett, Pine, & Fletcher, 2013). Goodwyn et al (2000) argue that baby signs might act as a scaffold, helping children transition to the more challenging task of producing words.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Baby sign but not spontaneous gesture predicts later vocabulary in children with Down Syndrome

et al. 2015

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Early spontaneous gesture, specifically deictic gesture, predicts subsequent vocabulary development in typically developing (TD) children. Here we ask whether deictic gesture plays a similar role in predicting later vocabulary size in children with DS, who have been shown to have difficulties in speech production, but strengths in spontaneous gesture and baby sign use. We compared the gestures and baby signs produced by 23 children with DS (Mage=2;6) and 23 TD children (Mage=1;6), in relation to their expressive spoken vocabulary size one year later. Children with DS showed significant deficits in gesture production, particularly for deictic gestures, but strengths in baby sign production, compared to their typically developing peers. More importantly, it was the baby signs produced by children with DS, but not deictic gestures, that predicted their spoken vocabulary size one year later. Our results further highlight the important role baby signs can play in language development in children with developmental disorders.

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“…Place 1995;Dickins and Dickins 2001). Signing, demonstrable early in human ontogeny (though its developmental significance here is questionable (Kirk et al 2013;Fitzpatrick et al 2014), and often accorded an important speculative role in the phylogeny of language (Corballis 1992), may well be an example of just such an operant.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

A Simpler Route to Stimulus Equivalence? A Replication and Further Exploration of a “Simple Discrimination Training Procedure” (Canovas, Debert and Pilgrim 2014)

Dickins

2015

Psychol Rec

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In a recent paper in this journal, Canovas, Debert and Pilgrim (The Psychological Record, 65 (2), [337][338][339][340][341][342][343][344][345][346] 2015), in their second experiment, taught participants to make one key press to each of three simple visual stimuli and an alternative response to another three. They then trained two new key presses to one stimulus from each class, which then transferred to the other stimuli in each class. When subsequently presented with compounds of two stimuli, participants indicated Bcorrect^to within-class compounds, but Bincorrect^to between-class compounds. The present study starts with a successful replication of this seemingly new way of establishing stimulus equivalence classes, with an added matching-to-sample test at the end. In two further experiments, the visual stimuli were replaced by non-words, with two further non-words to be said aloud in place of key-presses. These showed that it was possible to establish two or three equivalence classes using such initial discrimination training, even when the prior demonstration of functional equivalence classes by transfer-of-training to a second set of responses was omitted. Other ways of conceptualizing these methods of training are considered, together with some implications for enlarging our understanding of equivalence class formation.The formation of stimulus equivalence classes (Sidman 2000) has been demonstrated following a variety of training procedures. Prototypical are variants of the so-called matchingto-sample (MTS) procedure, where trained relations are established between stimuli in pairs by having one stimulus, the sample, followed by a choice of other stimuli, the comparisons, one of which the participant is taught to choose consistently. A variant of MTS is the single comparison, alternative response procedure, or BGo/No Go^procedure, in which the comparison may be correct or incorrect, and the participant is reinforced for indicating one or the other. A third procedure is respondent-type training in which each sample is followed by its correct comparison in unreinforced pairings, though the demonstration of the resultant emergent equivalence relations requires an MTS test procedure. To what extent are the behavioural manifestations of stimulus equivalence (Sidman and Tailby 1982) indifferent to such varied methods by means of which they may be engendered? Also the yield of these proceduresthe proportion of participants thus trained who form stimulus equivalence classes-is often less than all. Can any simpler ways be found that at least as reliably have the same outcome?Canovas, Debert and Pilgrim (2014) reported two experiments in which functional equivalence classes were established by two different procedures that they described as Bsimple discrimination training^. The first experiment used repeated reversal learning, in which in one reversal each stimulus in one group of three (A1, B1, and C1) served as S+ for a given response, and those in the other group (A2, B2, and C2) as S-, with these roles being s...

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To Sign or Not to Sign? The Impact of Encouraging Infants to Gesture on Infant Language and Maternal Mind‐Mindedness

Cited by 62 publications

References 52 publications

How HANDy are baby signs? A commentary on a systematic review of the impact of gestural communication on typically developing, hearing infants under the age of 36 months

How HANDy are baby signs? A commentary on a systematic review of the impact of gestural communication on typically developing, hearing infants under the age of 36 months

Baby sign but not spontaneous gesture predicts later vocabulary in children with Down Syndrome

A Simpler Route to Stimulus Equivalence? A Replication and Further Exploration of a “Simple Discrimination Training Procedure” (Canovas, Debert and Pilgrim 2014)

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