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Indeed they do, say psychologists Susan Goldin-Meadow and Meredith Rowe of the University of Chicago, who published a study in the Feb. 13 issue of Science. The researchers found that at 14 months of age, babies already showed a wide range of "speaking" ability through gestures, and that those differences were correlated with their socioeconomic background and how frequently their parents used gestures to communicate. High-income, better-educated parents gestured more frequently to their children to convey meaning and new concepts, and in turn, their kids gestured more to them. When researchers tested the same children...
...months, you can't see a difference with their speech, but you can already see a difference with their gestures," says Goldin-Meadow, a leading expert on gesture. "And children's gestures can be traced back to parents' gestures...
...Goldin-Meadow and Rowe's study involved children from 50 Chicago-area families of various ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. Annual incomes ranged from less than $15,000 to more than $100,000, and parents' educational level ranged from high school dropout to advanced degree. The researchers videotaped each child at 14 months with his or her primary caregiver (the mother, in 49 out of 50 kids) for 90 minutes while the pair engaged in everyday activities. Those tapes were then transcribed - all speech and gestures seen during the 90 minutes were noted and recorded in code. (See pictures...
Although Goldin-Meadow is quick to point out that the study shows only an association, not a causation, among socioeconomic status, gestures and vocabulary ability, "we do think there is something going on here," she says. "When parents gesture around their children, the kids might be picking up the gestures and doing it themselves...
...gestures. If a parent responds to that gesture by verbally identifying the object - by saying, "That's a doll," for example - children get a head start on growing their nascent vocabularies. "That's a teachable moment, and mothers are teaching the kids the word for an object," says Goldin-Meadow. She also believes that lively gesturing (like clapping) could allow kids to better understand new concepts (like happiness) simply by giving them a visceral way to express them...