Poster #27 - Children’s Production of Speech and Movement During Learning: Timing Matters Differently for Action and Gesture

• In Event: 2-055 - Poster Session 06
  In Poster Session: PS 06 Section - Cognitive Processes

Integrative Statement

Children who observe their teachers gesture during instruction are more likely to learn, generalize, and retain their understanding of a concept (Goldin-Meadow, 2014). But how does gesture interact with spoken instruction to promote learning? One potential mechanism is its ability to present information simultaneously with speech. Previous research supports this possibility; 3rd grade children retain and generalize what they learn from a math lesson better when they observe simultaneous speech and gesture instruction than sequential speech and gesture instruction (Congdon et al., 2017).
The present study further explores the relation between gesture and speech by considering the following questions. (1) Does the advantage of simultaneity with speech extend to other types of movement, such as performing actions on objects? (2) Is this advantage also evident when the child is producing the speech and movement strategies themselves, rather than observing an instructor?

We conducted two studies with 2nd and 3rd graders learning to solve math equivalence problems (e.g., 3+4+5= _ +5) through a pretest-training-posttest design. After a pretest on which children solved 0 problems correctly, children were taught to produce different but complimentary problem-solving strategies through speech and gesture (Study 1; N=75) After a pretest on which children solved 0 problems correctly, children were taught to produce different but complimentary problem-solving strategies through speech and gesture (Study 1; N=75) or through speech and actions on number tiles (Study 2; N=87). These strategies were either produced simultaneously (Speech + Gesture/Action) or sequentially (either Gesture/Action then Speech or Speech then Gesture/Action) during a training session. Immediately after instruction and after 24-hour and 4-week delays, children were tested on different types of problems: Trained problems, which had the same form as those used during training, and generalization problems, which required children to understand math equivalence more flexibly.

Results from Study 1 suggest that all children who produced gesture strategies equally retained their knowledge over the three sessions, regardless of whether they were produced simultaneously or sequentially with speech (p=0.38). The advantage of simultaneous production was evident in Study 2, however: Only children who simultaneously produced speech and action retained their knowledge on the generalization problems (p=0.04). Yet, analyses across both studies suggest that gesture is the most powerful learning tool. Children across all gesture conditions in Study 1 better retained their knowledge at the delayed post-tests of both trained (p=0.03) and transfer problems (p=0.06) than children who produced the action strategy simultaneously with speech.

Together, findings from these two studies suggest that action and gesture may promote learning in different ways. When a learner produces gesture, its advantage as a learning tool may not depend on its timing with speech. Action, on the other hand, benefits learning more when children produce it simultaneously with speech. These results have implications for how gesture and action should be introduced as learning tools in classrooms, and add to previous work by suggesting that the effects of simultaneous and sequential presentation of speech and movement on learning may vary depending on the learner’s perspective.

Authors

• Cristina Carrazza, University of Chicago
  Non-Presenting Author

• Casey Hall, University of Chicago
  Presenting Author

• Elizabeth Wakefield, Loyola University Chicago
  Non-Presenting Author

• Susan Goldin-Meadow, University of Chicago
  Non-Presenting Author