Gesture and language use in toddlers: the role of verbal and non-verbal working memory in language development and gesture production process

Abstract

Gestures constitute an inseparable part of communication system and from very early years onward children use speech accompanying gestures. Importance of gestures in communication processes lead researchers to investigate cognitive underpinnings of gestures. In a limited number of studies conducted with adults, working memory capacity has been speculated to play a central role in gesture use. However, only a few studies investigated cognitive underpinnings of gesture use in very young children. The purpose of the current study is to investigate the role of verbal and non-verbal working memory for gesture production in toddlers. As a secondary aim and to understand the connection between language and cognitive processes from a holistic point of view, relations of the verbal and non-verbal memory systems to expressive and receptive language parameters are also examined. Results indicated that there is a close association between childrens’s receptive language ability and their non-verbal working memory capacity when the effect of age was controlled. Considering gesture use, although partially supported, findings suggested that children produce gestures with no accompanying speech when their low verbal working memory capacity is coupled with a high non-verbal working memory capacity. Moreover, children who scored higher on both verbal and non-verbal working memory were found to be producing more gesture-speech combinations than other children whose verbal and non-verbal working memory capacities were below average. Thus, results of the present study suggested that many aspects of language development including gesture use are influenced by memory abilities.