IMPACT OF SYMBOLIC GESTURING ON INFANT DEVELOPMENT

象征性手势对婴儿发育的影响

• 批准号: 3326596
• 负责人: LINDA P ACREDOLO
• 金额: $ 13.74万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT DAVIS
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 1989
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1989-07-01 至 1992-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/3326596
• 关键词: child psychology; human subject; infant human (0-1 year); language development; memory; paralinguistic behavior; parent offspring interaction

Four previous studies from my laboratory have confirmed the existence for the vast majority of middle-class infants of spontaneously developed gestures which symbolically represent objects, requests, or conditions (e.g., panting for "dog"; hand-rotating as in turning a door knob for "want out",; arms raised for "big"). These gestures are a phenomenon of early language acquisition and are used communicatively in ways directly parallel to verbal words. Their status as symbols is based upon their spontaneous application by the infant in a wide variety of appropriate contexts. Although identifiable in almost all infants, impressive individual differences exist in their number and longevity. Of particular importance to the present study are the consistently obtained positive correlations between the tendency to develop these types of gestures and the rate of verbal vocabulary acquisition. The proposed study represents a logical next step in the programmatic exploration of this phenomenon. Having documented the existence of symbolic gesturing and described its correlates for children experiencing typical language acquisition environments, our attention in the present study turns toward assessing the impact of purposefully promoting this type of gesturing. Only in this way will we be able to explore the reasons for the positive correlations described above and evaluate specific hypotheses about the relation between symbolic gesturing and development in other domains, most notably cognitive development and parent-child relations. Comparisons will be made among three groups of infants. Parents of infants in the sign Training Group will be trained to encourage symbolic gesturing. In order to control for the increased levels of parent-child interaction that would inevitably result from such training, parents of a second group of infants, the Verbal Training Group will be trained to encourage verbal labeling. Finally, a third group will function as a control for participation in a longitudinal study of language development. Parents of infants in this Non-Intervention Group will be unaware of any special focus on language. Biweekly interviews from 11 months to 24 months will be conducted with parents in the two training groups in order to evaluate compliance with training instruction and to obtain accurate information about gestural and language development. These data will be augmented by laboratory assessments of verbal development, symbolic play, spatial memory, and parent-child relations for all three groups at 15-, 19-, and 24-months. In comparison to subjects in these latter two groups, it is hypothesized that children in the Sign Training Group will acquire verbal vocabulary at a faster rate, will show greater gains in two cognitive domains characterized by mental representation skills (symbolic play and memory for spatial location), and will engender in their parents higher levels of satisfaction with certain aspects of parent-child relations. The information gained will be important to theories of symbol development in general and language acquisition in particular. In addition, the results will enable us to provide informed advice to parents about the potential advantages and disadvantages of encouraging this type of gesturing in their infants.

我实验室之前的四项研究已经证实了 绝大多数中产阶级婴儿是自然发育的 象征性地代表物体、请求或条件的手势 （例如，气喘吁吁地表示“狗”；用手旋转，如转动门把手表示“想要” 出”，；举起手臂表示“大”）。这些手势是早期的一种现象 语言习得并以直接平行的方式进行交际使用 到言语。 他们作为象征的地位是基于他们的自发性 婴儿在各种适当的环境中的应用。 尽管几乎所有婴儿都可以识别，但令人印象深刻的个体 它们的数量和寿命存在差异。 特别重要的是 本研究始终获得正相关性 发展这些类型手势的倾向和发生率之间 口头词汇的习得。 拟议的研究代表了计划中合乎逻辑的下一步 对这一现象的探索。 记录了存在 象征性手势并描述了其与儿童经历的相关性 典型的语言习得环境，我们现在的注意力 研究转向评估有目的地推广这种类型的影响 的手势。 只有这样，我们才能探究其中的原因。 上述正相关性并评估具体假设 关于象征性手势与其他方面的发展之间的关系 领域，尤其是认知发展和亲子关系。 将在三组婴儿之间进行比较。 婴儿父母 在标志培训小组中将接受鼓励象征性手势的培训。 为了控制亲子互动水平的增加 这种训练不可避免地会导致第二组的父母 对于婴儿，言语训练小组将接受培训，鼓励言语 标签。 最后，第三组将作为对照 参与语言发展的纵向研究。 父母 该非干预组中的婴儿将不会意识到任何特殊焦点 关于语言。 11 个月至 24 个月期间每两周进行一次访谈 与两个培训组的家长一起进行评估 遵守培训指示并获取准确信息 关于手势和语言的发展。 这些数据将通过以下方式扩充 语言发展、符号游戏、空间的实验室评估 所有三个组在 15 岁、19 岁和 15 岁时的记忆和亲子关系 24 个月。 与后两组受试者相比， 假设手语训练组的孩子将获得语言能力 以更快的速度词汇，将在两个认知方面表现出更大的收获 以心理表征技能为特征的领域（符号游戏和 对空间位置的记忆），并将使他们的父母产生更高的 对亲子关系某些方面的满意度。 这 所获得的信息对于符号发展理论非常重要 一般知识和特别是语言习得。 此外，结果 将使我们能够向家长提供有关潜力的明智建议 鼓励他们使用这种手势的优点和缺点 婴儿。