Poster #114 - Asking mothers to use representational gestures changes their word use

• In Event: 1-005 - Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Section - Language, Communication

Integrative Statement

Representational gesture programs or “baby sign” programs for hearing babies and children with developmental delays have been promoted as a way to improve early language development (Acredolo & Goodwyn, 1988; Capone & McGregor, 2004). However, it is not clear why using representational gestures might be beneficial. One possibility is that when mothers use representational gestures they present words in ways known to help word learning—in short utterances, as single words, and in utterance-final position. To evaluate this, we examined how mothers paired nouns and verbs with representational gestures during gesture (book-sharing) and non-gesture (play or book-sharing) tasks to determine if mothers used words differently with and without representational gestures. Nineteen mothers were asked to use four representational gestures while looking at a book depicting four targets (2 nouns; 2 verbs: ball, duck, dance, go or bear, car, throw, open; groups combined as not different) with their 13-month-olds (10 girls) and to play with them as they normally would for six minutes using a standard toy set. A contrast group of five additional mother-infant dyads was asked to look at the same book as they typically would. Representational gesture episodes from the book sharing and mothers’ utterances during play and non-gesture book sharing containing the same target words were coded for proportions of one-word utterances, proportions of target words in utterance-final position, and MLU. Three 2 (task: gesture-book, non-gesture-play) x 2 (word class: nouns, verbs) repeated-measures ANOVAs were completed for MLU in words, one-word utterances, and targets in final position. Although MLU did not vary significantly across word class, mothers’ utterances with targets were shorter during representational gesture episodes than during play. Mothers presented target nouns and verbs in one-word utterances more often during the gesture task than in the non-gesture task. Pairwise comparisons showed that during the non-gesture task mothers produced target verbs less often in one-word utterances than target nouns. In contrast, during the gesture task there was no significant difference in how often nouns and verbs occurred in one-word utterances. Finally, mothers overwhelmingly placed noun and verb targets in utterance-final position during the representational gesture task, significantly more often than during non-gesture play where mothers placed more target nouns than verbs in final position. (See Table 1.) ANOVAs including speech of the 5 mothers during non-gesture book-sharing revealed contrasts to speech during representational-gesture book-sharing, and parallels to speech during non-gesture play. (See Table 1.) Thus, interactive context cannot account for differences in mothers’ speech across the representational-gesture book-sharing and play contexts. This study presents the first evidence that asking mothers to use representational gestures impacts the way they talk with their infants. When mothers focus on producing representational signs, they more often use one-word utterances, thereby decreasing MLU and increasing position-final utterances. These actions make words more salient for infants’ learning and may account for the reported benefits of “baby sign” programs. Therefore, interventionists should think beyond promoting representational gestures in themselves and consider the kinds of changes that might co-occur in mothers’ speech.

Authors

• Janet Olson, Northern Illinois University
  Presenting Author

• Sabina Walker, Batavia Illinois School District
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ruth Freidel, Kansas City Behavioral Health Holdco
  Non-Presenting Author

• Elise Frank Masur, Northern Illinois University
  Non-Presenting Author