Gesture development in Peruvian children and its relationship with vocalizations and vocabulary

Abstract

We examine gestural development, and correlations between gesture types, vocalizations and vocabulary at ages 8 to 15 months, employing data from MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories for Peruvian Spanish, in the first such study with Peruvian children. Results show (1) significant change with age in the production of gesture types, with older children producing more; (2) important correlations between gesture types, and both vocalization types and vocabulary after controlling for age effects; and (3) correlations between the trajectory of the pointing gesture in its two modalities (whole-hand and index-finger) with age, vocalizations, and vocabulary, an effect that persists with respect to vocalizations after controlling for age. Our findings, based on a sample from a non-weird population, support a key role for gesture production in early communicative and linguistic development.