Department of Psychology, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
Pediatrics. 2020 Nov;146(Suppl 3):S278-S283. doi: 10.1542/peds.2020-0242G.
Speakers and signers naturally and spontaneously gesture when they use language to communicate. These gestures not only play a central role in how language is used in social situations but also offer insight into speakers' and signers' cognitive processes. The goals of this article are twofold: (1) to document how gesture can be used to identify concerns in language development and (2) to illustrate how gesture can be used to address those concerns, particularly with respect to pragmatic development. These goals are explored in this article, with a focus on deaf and/or hard of hearing (DHH) children. Medical providers and allied health professionals, as well as educators and parents, can use the information gleaned from the gestures of DHH children to determine if intervention is needed. Gesture can also be used to design interventions, including interventions in which children who are DHH are presented gestures in combination with speech or signs and interventions in which they are encouraged to gesture themselves. Children's gestures not only increase their learning potential but also create opportunities for medical and health professionals, as well as educators and parents, to gain access to a DHH child's unspoken and unsigned ideas, capitalizing on the opportunity to provide intervention when it is likely to be effective.
演讲者和手语使用者在使用语言进行交流时，会自然而然地做出手势。这些手势不仅在语言在社交情境中的使用中起着核心作用，而且还能深入了解演讲者和手语使用者的认知过程。本文有两个目标：(1)记录手势如何用于识别语言发展中的关注点；(2)说明如何利用手势来解决这些关注点，特别是在语用发展方面。本文将重点探讨聋人和/或重听儿童（DHH），探索这些目标。医疗服务提供者和相关健康专业人员，以及教育者和家长，可以从 DHH 儿童的手势中获取信息，来确定是否需要干预。手势也可以用于设计干预措施，包括向 DHH 儿童展示手势与言语或手语相结合的干预措施，以及鼓励他们自己做出手势的干预措施。儿童的手势不仅增加了他们的学习潜力，还为医疗和健康专业人员、教育者和家长提供了机会，让他们能够了解 DHH 儿童未说出和未签名的想法，从而有机会在可能有效的时候提供干预。
