Lavelli Manuela, Barachetti Chiara, Florit Elena
University of Verona.
J Child Lang. 2015 Nov;42(6):1191-218. doi: 10.1017/S0305000914000762.
This study examined (a) the relationship between gesture and speech produced by children with specific language impairment (SLI) and typically developing (TD) children, and their mothers, during shared book-reading, and (b) the potential effectiveness of gestures accompanying maternal speech on the conversational responsiveness of children. Fifteen preschoolers with expressive SLI were compared with fifteen age-matched and fifteen language-matched TD children. Child and maternal utterances were coded for modality, gesture type, gesture-speech informational relationship, and communicative function. Relative to TD peers, children with SLI used more bimodal utterances and gestures adding unique information to co-occurring speech. Some differences were mirrored in maternal communication. Sequential analysis revealed that only in the SLI group maternal reading accompanied by gestures was significantly followed by child's initiatives, and when maternal non-informative repairs were accompanied by gestures, they were more likely to elicit adequate answers from children. These findings support the 'gesture advantage' hypothesis in children with SLI, and have implications for educational and clinical practice.
(a)特定语言障碍(SLI)儿童、发育正常(TD)儿童及其母亲在共读图书过程中产生的手势与言语之间的关系;(b)母亲言语中伴随的手势对儿童对话反应能力的潜在有效性。将15名有表达性SLI的学龄前儿童与15名年龄匹配以及15名语言匹配的TD儿童进行比较。对儿童和母亲的话语进行编码,涉及方式、手势类型、手势-言语信息关系以及交际功能。相对于TD同龄人,SLI儿童使用了更多的双模态话语和能为同时出现的言语增添独特信息的手势。母亲的交流中也反映出了一些差异。序列分析表明,只有在SLI组中,母亲伴有手势的阅读之后儿童的主动性才显著增加,并且当母亲的非信息性修正伴有手势时,它们更有可能引出儿童的恰当回答。这些发现支持了SLI儿童的“手势优势”假说,并对教育和临床实践具有启示意义。