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Narrative skills are an important component of language development. Additionally, the type of gestures children use during storytelling have been linked to the structure of their narratives. Specifically, the use of character-viewpoint gestures (in which the gesturer takes on a first-person view of the character with their hands/body) predicts better-structured narratives in typically developing children, but this has not been examined in children who experienced language delays (“Late Talkers”). The current study investigates gesture use, gesture type, and gesture viewpoint during a wordless cartoon narrative retell task in former Late Talkers (LTs) and Typical Talkers (TTs) at age 4. Participants watched silent cartoon videos during a study conducted on Zoom and were asked to retell the story. We found that former LTs gestured more than TTs. Additionally, former LTs differed in the use of gesture type from their TT peers, and we found no group difference for viewpoint gesture uses. Findings suggest that gesture continues to serve as a compensatory mechanism in language production for former LTs but may also reflect differences in narrative construction.
Funding Source: Council of Academic Programs in Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University |
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