IMPACT OF SYMBOLIC GESTURING ON INFANT DEVELOPMENT

我的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发发育的 象征性地表示对象、请求或条件的手势 (例如，气喘吁吁地叫“狗”；用手转动门把手表示“想要” 出局“，；举起手臂表示”大“)。这些手势是早期的一种现象 语言习得，并以直接并行的方式交流使用 敬口头上的话。它们作为符号的地位是建立在它们的自发基础上的 由婴儿在各种适当的情况下应用。 虽然几乎所有的婴儿都可以辨认，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 与目前的研究是一致获得的正相关 在发展这些类型的手势的趋势和 动词词汇习得。 拟议的研究代表了方案中合乎逻辑的下一步 对这一现象的探索。在记录了存在 象征性手势及其与儿童体验的相关性 典型的语言习得环境，我们在当下的关注 研究转向评估有目的地推广这种类型的影响 打手势。只有这样，我们才能探索出 上面描述的正相关性和评估特定的假设 论象征性手势与他者发展的关系 特别是在认知发展和亲子关系方面。 将在三组婴儿之间进行比较。婴儿的父母 在标志中，训练组将接受培训，以鼓励象征性的手势。 为了控制增加的亲子互动水平 这将不可避免地产生于这样的培训，第二组的父母 对于婴儿，语言训练组将接受培训，以鼓励婴儿使用语言 贴标签。最后，第三个组将作为 参与语言发展的纵向研究。的父母 在非干预组中的婴儿将不会意识到任何特别的焦点 在语言上。从11个月到24个月的双周面试将是 在两个培训小组中与家长一起进行评估 遵守培训指令并获得准确的信息 关于手势和语言的发展。这些数据将通过以下方式增加 语言发展、象征性游戏、空间的实验室评估 15岁、19岁和19岁三个年龄组的记忆和亲子关系 24个月。与后两组的受试者相比， 假设手势训练组中的儿童将获得言语 词汇量以更快的速度增长，会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(象征性游戏和 对空间位置的记忆)，并会在父母身上产生更高的记忆力 对亲子关系某些方面的满意程度。这个 所获得的信息将是符号发展理论的重要组成部分 一般情况下，尤其是语言习得。此外，结果显示， 将使我们能够向父母提供关于潜在的 在他们的生活中鼓励这种手势的利与弊 婴儿。

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.