Today I attended one of the Early Head Start Rising Summer Learning Series Webinars on “Early Language Development: The Power of Gesture and Infant Language Development.” This series is designed by the National Head Start Association for Early Head Start professionals, which serves children and families from pregnancy to three years old. The webinar’s presenter, Dr. Lori Foran, is a speech-language pathologist dedicated to evaluating, diagnosing, and treating children with language disorders and swallowing difficulties. The webinar was streamed live to almost 300 participants from all over the country including site supervisors, childcare liaisons, quality assurance program specialists, home visitors, center directors, mental health and disabilities manager among others.
The webinar consisted of visuals indicating developmental milestones for children that incorporated both gestures and speech, which are equally indicative of what the child understands from its surroundings. I learned about the difference between Deictic and Symbolic Gestures, in that the first is pre-linguistic but used throughout development, whereas the latter is used to directly communicate with immediate caregivers and with the larger community. Dr. Foran referred to this concept as symbolic language, presenting research findings from an Iverson & Goldin-Meadow study, which indicated the predictive value of these gestures, in that “the more children gesture early on, the more words they are likely to have later in development. When a child begins to point, he is on the cusp of producing first words.”
She highlighted additional benefits of child gestures being a way to express ideas, opportunities for parents to “translate” gestures into words, and a way to practice language constructions. Moreover, adult’s input on gestures has been proven to have a positive effect on their children’s language development in that it may scaffold word learning by enriching semantic knowledge; guides infant attention to objects or people referenced, and ultimately increases child gesture use.
I really appreciated all of the peer-reviewed findings shared in this webinar as I learned a lot about children’s development, and specifically about the importance of promoting gestures as a pathway for children’s language development. Additionally, it was fascinating to think about the Early Head Start Staff nationwide that are either preparing for this fall’s programming or are continuing to see infants and toddlers throughout the summer, who can see these theories in action. NHSA rightfully recognized in this conversation that in the case a child needed screening from a speech-language pathologist, the information provided by Dr. Foran in this webinar is directly and immediately applicable for all working directly with young children.
(Images Source: Early Head Start Rising Summer Learning Series Webinars on “Early Language Development: The Power of Gesture and Infant Language Development." Presentation by Dr. Lori Foran)