The present study reports empirical longitudinal data on the early stages of language
development. The main hypothesis is that the output systems of speech and gesture may …

The present paper focuses on early stages of development exploring the emergence of the
gesture language system in infancy and its evolution toward the adult system. Old and …

There is a growing awareness that language and gesture are deeply intertwined in the
spontaneous expression of adults. Although some research suggests that children use …

In development, children often use gesture to communicate before they use words. The
question is whether these gestures merely precede language development or are …

The gestures children produce predict the early stages of spoken language development.
Here we ask whether gesture is a global predictor of language learning, or whether …

Children who produce one word at a time often use gesture to supplement their speech,
turning a single word into an utterance that conveys a sentence-like meaning ('eat'+ point at …

What does hand movement have to do with language and communicative development?
This Introduction proposes that language acquisition researchers have at least four reasons …

At the one-word stage children use gesture to supplement their speech ('eat'+ point at
cookie), and the onset of such supplementary gesture-speech combinations predicts the …

Children produce their first gestures before their first words, and their first gesture+ word
sentences before their first word+ word sentences. These gestural accomplishments have …

Children, even at the one-word stage of language development, spontaneously produce
gestures along with their speech, just as adults do. Although there appears to be a brief …