Shin So Yeon, Rowe Meredith L, Lee Hyun Suk
University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA.
Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Infancy. 2024 May-Jun;29(3):327-354. doi: 10.1111/infa.12585. Epub 2024 Feb 26.
Research in the U.S. and other Western countries shows that children's early gesture use, which starts prior to verbal communication, is an important predictor of children's later language development. Despite increasing efforts to study gesture use in diverse contexts, most of our knowledge on the role of gesture is largely based on populations of Western countries. In this study, we add to the growing body of international research by examining gesture use by 31 mothers and their 14-month-old infants (12 girls) in South Korea and investigate the gestures used during interaction, and whether early gesture use at 14 months predicts Korean children's later language skills at 36 months. The results showed that in addition to using gestures observed in other cultural contexts, Korean mother-child dyads used culturally specific gesture (i.e., bowing), showing an early sign of socialization that starts with preverbal children. In addition, Korean infants' index-finger pointing, but not showing and giving, predicted their later receptive and expressive vocabulary skills at 36 months, providing additional support for the importance of pointing in early language development.
美国和其他西方国家的研究表明，儿童在言语交流之前就开始的早期手势运用，是儿童后期语言发展的一个重要预测指标。尽管人们越来越努力地研究不同情境下的手势运用，但我们对手势作用的大部分了解主要基于西方国家的人群。在本研究中，我们通过考察韩国31位母亲及其14个月大的婴儿（12名女孩）的手势运用，为日益增多的国际研究增添内容，并调查互动过程中使用的手势，以及14个月大时的早期手势运用是否能预测韩国儿童36个月大时的后期语言技能。结果显示，除了使用在其他文化背景中观察到的手势外，韩国母婴二元组还使用了特定文化的手势（即鞠躬），这显示了从非言语儿童开始的早期社会化迹象。此外，韩国婴儿的食指指物行为，而非展示和给予行为，预测了他们36个月大时的后期接受性和表达性词汇技能，为指物在早期语言发展中的重要性提供了额外支持。
