Gesture as a forerunner of linguistic change: insights from autism

手势作为语言变革的先驱：来自自闭症的见解

• 批准号: 1251337
• 负责人: Seyda Ozcaliskan
• 金额: $ 38.5万
• 依托单位: Georgia State University Research Foundation, Inc.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-04-15 至 2018-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1251337&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Gesture; forerunner; linguistic; change; insights

Gesture acts as a forerunner of language development in typically developing children. Children take their initial steps into sentences, and later, into extended speech (narratives, explanations) using gesture-speech combinations before expressing the same meanings entirely in speech. This project aims to determine whether gesture also serves as a reliable index of burgeoning spoken language abilities of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), who exhibit delays and/or deviations in attaining similar milestones. This project approaches this question by studying gesture and speech use at two crucial milestones of language development, namely onset of sentences to request and comment (study 1) and onset of extended speech in narratives and explanations (study 2) using longitudinal observations. Study 1, focusing on first sentences, examines changes in gestures and speech of 18 children with ASD and 18 typically developing children, as they transition from producing single words to simple sentences in two language contexts: commenting on objects and requesting objects. Study 2, focusing on extended speech, examines changes in gestures and speech of 25 children with ASD and 25 typically developing children in two language contexts: producing narratives and providing explanations. Given the reported difficulties children with ASD exhibit in gesture production at the early ages--followed by delays in later speech production--the project asks whether the pattern of gesture-speech combinations leading the way to early sentences and later narratives/explanations is disrupted, or whether this language-learning process is so robust that children with ASD, like typically developing children, initially rely on gesture and speech together to convey their emerging spoken language abilities.This research will make an important contribution in two major respects: First, the findings will inform theories of language development about the robustness of the gesture-speech system across different learners. Compared to typically developing children, the language-learning trajectory of children with ASD shows variability, with weaknesses in early commenting and later narrative contexts, accompanied by relative strengths in early requesting and later explanation contexts. Children with ASD also show unique deficits in early pointing gestures, but relative strengths in later iconic gestures, making them an ideal group to understand whether and how gesture is part of the developmental process that supports language-learning across stages and contexts of language acquisition. Second, the findings have potential clinical implications. Gesture, when considered in relation to the accompanying speech, can be used to identify when a child is in a transitional state with respect to a language milestone. More specifically, children whose gestures convey different information from their speech show more readiness to learn, and in turn, are also more likely to benefit from instruction. As such, gestures might serve as a good index of emerging language abilities, which, in turn, may help educators and clinicians to identify the best time to introduce task-specific strategies for language learning for children whose development is delayed or deviant. These strategies could range from providing more targeted spoken language input to explicitly encouraging children to use particular gestures when talking about the concepts that they are at the cusp of learning--both of which have been shown to be effective strategies in teaching new concepts to typically developing children.

在典型发育的儿童中，手势是语言发展的先导。孩子们最初会用言语来表达相同的意思，然后再用手势和言语的组合来扩展言语（叙述、解释）。该项目旨在确定手势是否也可以作为自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）儿童新兴口语能力的可靠指标，这些儿童在达到类似里程碑时表现出延迟和/或偏差。本项目通过研究语言发展的两个关键里程碑的手势和言语使用来探讨这个问题，即请求和评论句子的开始（研究1）和叙述和解释中扩展言语的开始（研究2）。研究1，专注于第一句话，探讨了18名ASD儿童和18名典型发育儿童的手势和言语变化，因为他们在两种语言背景下从产生单个单词过渡到简单的句子：评论对象和请求对象。研究2重点关注扩展言语，考察了25名自闭症谱系障碍儿童和25名发育正常的儿童在两种语言背景下的手势和言语变化：进行叙述和提供解释。鉴于有报道称ASD儿童在早期的手势制作中表现出困难-随后是后期语音制作的延迟-该项目询问手势-语音组合的模式是否导致早期句子和后期叙述/解释的中断，或者这种语言学习过程是否如此强大，以至于ASD儿童，像典型的发育中的儿童一样，这项研究将在两个主要方面做出重要贡献：首先，研究结果将为语言发展理论提供关于手势-语音系统在不同学习者中的鲁棒性的信息。与正常发育的儿童相比，ASD儿童的语言学习轨迹表现出变异性，早期评论和后期叙述环境中存在弱点，伴随着早期请求和后期解释环境中的相对优势。ASD儿童在早期指向手势方面也表现出独特的缺陷，但在后来的标志性手势中表现出相对优势，使他们成为了解手势是否以及如何成为支持语言学习的发展过程的一部分的理想群体。其次，这些发现具有潜在的临床意义。当与伴随的语音相关地考虑时，手势可以用于识别儿童何时处于相对于语言里程碑的过渡状态。更具体地说，手势传达的信息与言语不同的儿童表现出更好的学习意愿，反过来，也更有可能从教学中受益。因此，手势可以作为新兴语言能力的一个很好的指标，这反过来又可以帮助教育工作者和临床医生确定最佳时机，为发育迟缓或异常的儿童引入特定任务的语言学习策略。这些策略可以从提供更有针对性的口语输入到明确鼓励儿童在谈论他们正在学习的概念时使用特定的手势-这两种策略都被证明是向典型发展中儿童教授新概念的有效策略。