<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>This study examines the relationship between mothers’ use of gestures and the lexical production of their children, measured in a joint book-reading task. Fifteen mother-child dyads participated, all monolingual native speakers of Mexican Spanish. Children were boys and girls with typical development, aged 48 months. Each reading session was videotaped and analyzed to calculate the gestural production of mothers and the lexical production of children. The results showed a significant positive correlation between the number of mothers’ gestures and the number of distinct words used by the children. Mothers’ gestural communication was related to the size of the vocabulary children produced in joint book-reading.</p></abstract>

This study examines the relationship between mothers’ use of gestures and the lexical production of their children, measured in a joint book-reading task. Fifteen mother-child dyads participated, all monolingual native speakers of Mexican Spanish. Children were boys and girls with typical development, aged 48 months. Each reading session was videotaped and analyzed to calculate the gestural production of mothers and the lexical production of children. The results showed a significant positive correlation between the number of mothers’ gestures and the number of distinct words used by the children. Mothers’ gestural communication was related to the size of the vocabulary children produced in joint book-reading.

Mothers’ Use of Gestures and their Relationship to Children’s Lexical Production

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Psychology of Language and Communication

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

This study examines the relationship between mothers’ use of gestures and the lexical production of their children, measured in a joint book-reading task....

Mothers’ Use of Gestures and their Relationship to Children’s Lexical Production

Published Online: Dec 31, 2020

Page range: 175 - 200

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/plc-2020-0010

Keywords
gestures, deictic, lexical production, joint book-reading

© 2020 Aline Minto-García et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Mothers’ Use of Gestures and their Relationship to Children’s Lexical Production

Published Online: Dec 31, 2020

Page range: 175 - 200

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/plc-2020-0010

Keywordsgestures, deictic, lexical production, joint book-reading

© 2020 Aline Minto-García et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Keywords
gestures, deictic, lexical production, joint book-reading