Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Journal of Child Language
Abstract
Forty-eight toddlers participated in a word-learning task to assess gesture input on mapping nonce words to unfamiliar objects. Receptive fast mapping and expressive naming for target object-word pairs were tested in three conditions – with a point, with a shape gesture, and in a no-gesture, word-only condition. No statistically significant effect of gesture for receptive fast-mapping was found but age was a factor. Two year olds outperformed one year olds for both measures. Only one girl in the one-year-old group correctly named any items. There was a significant interaction between gesture and gender for expressive naming. Two-year old girls were six times more likely than two-year-old boys to correctly name items given point and shape gestures; whereas, boys named more items taught with the word only than with a point or shape gesture. The role of gesture input remains unclear, particularly for children under two years and for toddler boys.
First Page
662
Last Page
684
DOI
10.1017/S0305000922000149
Publication Date
2023
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Foran L.G., Beverly B.L., Shelley-Tremblay J., & Estis J.M. (2023). Can gesture input support toddlers’ fast mapping? Journal of Child Language 50, 662–684, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000922000149
Included in
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Comments
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press.