Findings The VT group did not outperform the ST group on any measure

1. Goodwyn, Susan, Linda Acredolo, Catherine Brown. (2000). Impact of Symbolic Gesturing on Early Language Development. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior 24(2), pp. 81-103. • Research Question: What is the impact of gesturing as it relates to infant development, particularly verbal language development? • Participants: 103 infants: 11 months old +/- 1 week. • Experimental group [ST] (19 boys, 13 girls) received training and follow-up with modeling gesturing. • Non-intervention Control group (22 boys, 17 girls) • Verbal Training group [VT] (17 boys, 15 girls) received training just with modeling target words. • Baseline measures taken for demographics, mother-reported vocabulary, and observed vocabulary. No significant differences found. • Phone interviews were made and recorded/coded every other week for parents to detail their efforts. • Children were tested in the lab at 11, 15,19, 24, 30, and 36 months Findings The VT group did not outperform the ST group on any measure At every level of analysis, an advantage is shown for children encouraged to use symbolic gestures in their early communication repertoires There are increases in infant-directed speech toward infants who are using gestures; also, gesturing increases infant-controlled speech Symbolic gesturing scaffolds language development at a few different levels: holistic, interactive, symbolic. Articulation, rather than conceptual knowledge, is the hurdle for communication. Critique +This is the first study in this domain with a control group that received comparable training. +Breadth of measures/tasks; scope of data/feedback -Homogeneity of subject. Also, the CT group was probably engaging in nearly as much labeling as the VT group simply as a function of parenting -Benefits seem to taper off by 36 months, so really more to allay parent/child frustration than for long-term gains