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In response to Jeff Allen's request of 3/22.<br>
<br>
When Gestures Speak Louder Than Words.<br>
(No claims re 50% of communication, etc!)<br>
<br>
Infants often do not initially understand caregiver messages (Catch it!).
Subsequent messages in which caregivers provide perceptual
structure/information with gestures (demonstrating how to catch)
overwhelmingly lead to achieving a practical understanding of ongoing
events. When caregivers' subsequent messages are expressed only with more
specific verbal utterances (Catch the ball!), a common understanding is
rarely achieved. <br>
<br>
This longitudinal research was conducted during the prelinguistic period
from 6 months through the one-word period (19-24 months). There were 5
Euro-American, English-speaking families and 6 Latino, Spanish-speaking
families. The data were collected in suburbs of Los Angeles, CA,
USA.<br>
<br>
Briefly, words cannot explain unless a person already knows what words
mean. Learning what words mean is what the infant "means" to
learn. These caregivers assembled messages by "saying and
showing", so their infants could perceive what they said and did.
<br>
<br>
Pat Zukow-Goldring<br>
<font face="Univers">
<dl>
<dd>Zukow-Goldring, P. (in press). Perceiving referring actions: Latino
and Euro-American
<dd><x-tab> </x-tab>caregivers
and infants comprehending speech. In K. L. Nelson, A. Aksu-Koc, &
<dd><x-tab> </x-tab> C.
Johnson (Eds.), <u>Children's Language</u>, Vol. 11. Hillsdale NJ:
Erlbaum. <br>
<br>
</dl>Zukow-Goldring, P. G. (1997). A social ecological realist approach
to the emergence of the <br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>lexicon:
Educating attention to amodal invariants in gesture and speech." In
C. Dent-Read &
<dl>
<dd>P. Zukow-Goldring (Eds.), <u>Evolving explanations of development:
Ecological approaches
<dd>to organism-environment systems</u> (pp. 199-250). Washington, D. C.:
American Psychological
<dd>Association.<br>
<br>
</dl>Zukow-Goldring, P. (1996). Sensitive caregivers foster the
comprehension of speech: When <br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>gestures
speak louder than words. <u>Early Development and Parenting</u>, <u>5</u>
(4), 195-211.<br>
<br>
</font><br>
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