Parent Gesture during Play in 18-month Toddlers with and without Language Delay Predicts Later Language

• In Event: Nonverbal communication

Abstract

Background: Parent communicative behaviors during parent-child interactions facilitate children’s development (Bruner, 1981). Parent gesture use, specifically, has been linked with language development in children with typical language (TL) and developmental delays (e.g., Choi et al., 2021). However, little is known about the specific characteristics of parent gesture that may help facilitate language acquisition. Previous work has shown that parent utterances that are synchronized (aligned with child’s focus of attention) and that have a declarative communicative intent (to share attention/information), as opposed to an intent to direct the child’s behavior, are predictive of language development (Siller & Sigman, 2002). To test this with parent gesture use, we hypothesized that synchronized and declarative parent gestures would predict child language development in toddlers with and without early language delay (LD).

Methods: Participants were drawn from a longitudinal study of language delay. At 18 months, toddlers with LD (n = 29) and TL (n = 60) participated in a 15-minute parent-child interaction with a standard set of toys. As shown in Figure 1, parents’ gestures were coded for synchrony (synchronized or nonsynchronized) and communicative intent (imperative or declarative), with declarative further classified as expressive (sharing emotion) or informative (sharing information). Language was measured using expressive age-equivalent scores from the Mullen Scales of Early Learning at 18 and 36 months.

Results: Within-group comparisons showed parents of both LD and TL toddlers used significantly more synchronized than nonsynchronized and more declarative than imperative gestures. Among declarative gestures, parents of LD toddlers used significantly more expressive- declarative than informative-declarative gestures, whereas parents of TL toddlers used similar frequencies. Between-group comparisons (see Table 1) indicate that parents of TL toddlers used significantly more synchronized and informative-declarative gestures than parents of LD toddlers. Hierarchical linear regression models revealed that after controlling for demographic variables and nonverbal developmental quotient, proportion of synchronized parent gestures significantly predicted concurrent (18 months) expressive language ( = .18, p < .05), and number of informative-declarative gestures significantly predicted expressive language at 36 months ( = .24, p < .05).

Conclusions: This study examined characteristics of gestures produced by parents of toddlers with and without language delay and their relation to toddlers’ language development. Parents in both groups produced a similar number of gestures during interactions with their toddlers. The majority of these gestures were declarative, conveying information or sharing emotion, rather than imperative, directing the toddlers’ behavior, and were synchronized with child focus of attention. Of note, however, parents of TL toddlers used significantly more synchronized and informative-declarative gestures than parents of LD toddlers. Importantly, both of these characteristics of parent gesture predicted child language. These findings extend previous work examining synchrony of parent language, suggesting that synchrony of parent gesture may play a unique role in children’s language development. Findings from this study may provide information about potential intervention components related to parent gesture use that may facilitate early language skills in children with language delay.

Authors

• Sarah Houghton, University of Utah
  Presenting Author

• Danielle Mead, San José State University

• Lauren Thompson, Washington State University

• Audrey Thurm, National Institute of Mental Health

• Ashley Stuart, University of Utah

• Stacy Shumway Manwaring, University of Utah