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证实了 绝大多数中产阶级的婴儿自发发育 象征性地表示对象、请求或条件的手势 (e.g.,气喘吁吁地说“狗”;像转动门把手那样转动手来表示“需要” “出”，;“大”时举起手臂）。 这些手势是一种早期的现象 语言习得和交流的方式直接并行使用 to verbal口头words话. 它们作为符号的地位是基于它们的自发性 婴儿在各种适当的情境中的应用。 虽然几乎所有的婴儿都可以识别，但令人印象深刻的个体 在数量和寿命上存在差异。 特别重要 与本研究一致的是， 发展这些类型的手势的趋势和 词汇习得 拟议的研究代表了方案的下一个合乎逻辑的步骤， 探索这一现象。 在记录了 象征性的手势，并描述了它的相关性，为儿童体验 典型的语言习得环境，我们目前的注意力 研究转向评估有目的地促进这种类型的影响， 打手势 只有这样，我们才能找出 上述正相关性并评估特定假设 关于象征性手势和其他发展之间的关系， 领域，尤其是认知发展和亲子关系。 将在三组婴儿中进行比较。 婴儿的父母 在标志培训组将接受培训，以鼓励象征性的手势。 为了控制父母和孩子之间互动的增加 这将不可避免地导致这种培训，第二组的父母， 对于婴儿，言语训练小组将接受培训，以鼓励言语 标签。 最后，第三组将作为对照， 参与语言发展的纵向研究。 家长 在这个非干预组的婴儿将不知道任何特殊的重点， 关于语言 从11个月到24个月的每两周一次的面试将是 与两个培训组的家长进行了评估， 遵守培训指导并获得准确信息 关于手势和语言的发展。 这些数据将通过 语言发展、符号游戏、空间 记忆力和亲子关系的所有三个组在15岁，19岁， 24个月 与后两组受试者相比， 我假设手语训练组的孩子会获得口头语言能力， 词汇量增加的速度越快，在两个认知方面的收益就越大。 以心理表征技能为特征的领域（象征性游戏和 空间位置的记忆），并将产生在他们的父母更高 对亲子关系某些方面的满意程度。 的 获得的信息将是重要的符号发展理论， 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在的 的优点和缺点，鼓励这种类型的手势在他们的 婴儿。