Gestures help building vocabulary

Babies who use many gestures to communicate when they are 14- month-old have much larger vocabularies when they start school than those who don't. Vocabulary is a key predictor of school success. Earlier research showed that well-off, educated parents tend to talk to their children more than their poorer, less-educated peers. To explore the interesting association between gestures of toddlers and their vocabulary skills as they grow, researchers from America identified 50 Chicago-area children and parents from diverse economic backgrounds and counted the number of gestures, such as pointing at a picture. The researchers recorded these gestures on videotapes. It was found that 14-month-olds from high-income, well-educated families used gesture to convey an average of 24 different meanings during each 90-minute session, compared with 13 meanings conveyed by children from lower-income families. When the same children entered school at age four and a half, those from higher-income families had better vocabulary scores on standardized tests. The videos revealed that parents from wealthier families gestured more with their children than the other parents. The above findings suggest that gestures can at least partly explain vocabulary differences between the groups, and may prove useful as the basis for interventions.