Psychological Development and Education ›› 2024, Vol. 40 ›› Issue (3): 367-374.doi: 10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2024.03.07

Previous Articles     Next Articles

The Effects of Iconic Gestures and Deictic Gestures on Action-related Vocabulary Learning in Children with Autism

WANG Juan, LIU Tianbi, FAN Xiaoyue   

  1. School of Education Science, Jiangsu Normal University, Xuzhou 221116
  • Published:2024-05-15

RichHTML

PDF (PC)

Abstract: The present study aimed to investigate action-related vocabulary learning in children with autism under the conditions of iconic gesture, deictic gesture, and non-gesture. Three groups of language-level matched children were selected to learn eight action-related vocabularies under the conditions of iconic gesture, deictic gesture, and non-gesture. All children were trained through pictures, situational stories, and videos. The vocabulary comprehension test and vocabulary naming test were completed at the end of the first learning session (T1) and the last learning session (T2). The results showed that: (1) Iconic gestures significantly benefitted vocabulary comprehension in children with autism beyond deictic gesture and non-gesture; (2) The increase in the number of learning sessions contributed to the improvement of vocabulary learning performance, regardless of the group; (3) All groups’ naming scores were poor in the short-term learning condition, but as the number of learning sessions increased, the facilitative effect of iconic gesture on naming test became more prominent. The study has shown that iconic gestures can promote action-related vocabulary comprehension in children with autism. For the naming test, the promoting effect was regulated by the number of learning. The iconic gestures may successfully enhance vocabulary naming in children with autism by increasing the training intensity. In addition, deictic gestures do not significantly promote the action-related vocabulary learning of children with autism.

Key words: iconic gesture, deictic gesture, children with autism, vocabulary comprehension, vocabulary naming

CLC Number: 

  • G442
American Psychiatric Association. (2013).Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-5). New York: American Psychiatric Pub.
Botting, N., Riches, N., Gaynor, M., & Morgan, G. (2010). Gesture production and comprehension in children with specific language impairment. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 28(1), 51-69.
Boucher, J., & Warrington, E. K. (1976). Memory deficits in early infantile autism: Some similarities to the amnesic syndrome.British Journal of Psychology, 67(1), 73-87.
Bowler, D. M., Matthews, N. J., & Gardiner, J. M. (1997). Asperger's syndrome and memory: Similarity to autism but not amnesia.Neuropsychologia, 35(1), 65-70.
Capone, N. C., & McGregor, K. K. (2005). The effect of semantic representation on toddlers’ word retrieval.Journal of Speech, Language & Hearing Research, 48(6), 1468-1480.
Charman, T. (2003). Why is joint attention a pivotal skill in autism? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 358(1430), 315-324.
Dimitrova, N., Özçalışkan, S., & Adamson, L. (2017). Do verbal children with autism comprehend gesture as readily as typically developing children?Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 47(10), 3267-3280.
Feyereisen, P. (2006). Further investigation on the mnemonic effect of gestures: Their meaning matters.European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 18(2), 185-205.
Hermelin, B., & O’Connor, N. (1967). Remembering of words by psychotic and subnormal children.British Journal of Psychology, 58(3-4), 213-218.
Holle, H. (2007).The comprehension of co-speech iconic gestures: behavioral, electrophysiological and neuroimaging studies (Unpublished doctorial dissertation). University of Leipzig.
Hostetter, A. B. (2011). When do gestures communicate? A meta-analysis.Psychological Bulletin, 137(2), 297-315.
Iverson, J. M., Capirci, O., & Caselli, M. C. (1994). From communication to language in two modalities.Cognitive Development, 9(1), 23-43.
Lavelli, M., Barachetti, C., & Florit, E. (2015). Gesture and speech during shared book reading with preschoolers with specific language impairment.Journal of Child Language, 42(6), 1191-1218.
Levelt, W. J., M., Roelofs, A., & Meyer, A. S. (1999). A theory of lexical access in speech production.Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22(1), 1-75.
Macoun, A., & Sweller, N. (2016).Listening and watching: The effects of observing gesture on preschoolers’ narrative comprehension. Cognitive Development, 40, 68-81.
Matthews, D., Behne, T., Lieven, E., & Tomasello, M. (2012). Origins of the human pointing gesture: A training study.Developmental Science, 15(6), 817-829.
McNeill, D. (1985). So you think gestures are nonverbal? Psychological Review, 92(3), 350-371.
McNeill, D. (1994). Hand and mind: What gestures reveal about thought. Language and Speech, 37(2), 203-209.
Meara, P. (2002). The rediscovery of vocabulary.Second Language Research, 18(4), 393-407.
Mottron, L., Morasse, K., & Belleville, S. (2001). A study of memory functioning in individualswith autism. The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 42(2), 253-260.
Mumford, K. H., & Kita, S. (2016). At 10-12 months, pointing gesture handedness predicts the size of receptive vocabularies.Infancy, 21(6), 751-765.
Mundy, P., & Crowson, M. (1997). Joint attention and early social communication: Implications for research on intervention with autism.Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 27(6), 653-676.
Novack, M. A., Goldin-Meadow, S., & Woodward, A. L. (2015). Learning from gesture: How early does it happen? Cognition, 142, 138-147.
Özçalışkan, S., Adamson, L. B., & Dimitrova, N. (2016). Early deictic but not other gestures predict later vocabulary in both typical development and autism. Autism, 20(6), 754-763.
Rizzolatti, G., Fogassi, L., & Gallese, V. (2001). Neurophysiological mechanisms underlying the understanding and imitation of action.Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2(9), 661-670.
Rowe, M. L., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2009a). Differences in early gesture explain SES disparities in child vocabulary size at school entry.Science, 323(5916), 951-953.
Rowe, M. L., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2009b). Early gesture selectively predicts later language learning.Developmental Science, 12(1), 182-187.
Sekine, K., Sowden, H., & Kita, S. (2015). The development of the ability to semantically integrate information in speech and iconic gesture in comprehension.Cognitive Science, 39(8), 1855-1880.
Silverman, L. B., Bennetto, L., Campana, E., & Tanenhaus, M. K. (2010). Speech-and-gesture integration in high functioning autism.Cognition, 115(3), 380-393.
Tellier, M. (2008). The effect of gestures on second language memorisation by young children.Gesture, 8(2), 219-235.
Toichi, M., & Kamio, Y. (2002). Long-term memory and levels-of-processing in autism.Neuropsychologia, 40(7), 964-969.
Vogt, S., & Kauschke, C. (2017a). With some help from others’ hands: Iconic gesture helps semantic learning in children with specific language impairment.Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 60(11), 3213-3225.
Vogt, S., & Kauschke, C. (2017b). Observing iconic gestures enhances word learning in typically developing children and children with specific language impairment.Journal of Child Language, 44(6), 1458-1484.
Weismer, S. E., & Hesketh, L. J. (1993). The influence of prosodic and gestural cues on novel word acquisition by children with specific language impairment.Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 36(5), 1013-1025.
Wong, C., & Kasari, C. (2012). Play and joint attention of children with autism in the preschool special education classroom.Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 42(10), 2152-2161.
Yu, C., & Smith, L. B. (2012). Embodied attention and word learning by toddlers.Cognition, 125(2), 244-262.
曹漱芹. (2009). 汉语自闭症儿童视觉性语义理解机制的探索及应用研究 (博士学位论文). 华东师范大学, 上海.
陈璐, 张婷, 李泉, 冯廷勇. (2015). 孤独症儿童共同注意的神经基础及早期干预. 心理科学进展, 23(7), 1205-1215.
何旭良, 杨峰. (2018). 自闭症儿童的语言研究现状及构想. 医学与哲学, 39(8), 25-28.
王辉, 李广政. (2021). 儿童手势及其与学习的关系. 心理科学进展, 29(9), 1617-1627.
王娟, 张攀. (2021). 手势对3～4岁儿童汉语词汇学习的影响. 幼儿教育, (12), 14-18.
伍珍, 郭睿. (2017). 婴儿指示性手势与其语言学习的关系. 心理科学进展, 25(10), 1705-1712.
徐云, 张潘. (2020). 孤独症儿童共同注意研究现状与进展. 中国临床心理学杂志, 28(5), 924-927+931.
荀恩东, 饶高琦, 肖晓悦, 臧娇娇. (2016). 大数据背景下BCC语料库的研制. 语料库语言学, 3(1), 93-109+118.
杨慧, 孙玉梅. (2018). 自闭症儿童语言干预中的手势语辅助研究综述. 现代特殊教育, (8), 66-74.
张攀, 王娟. (2021). 象似性手势在儿童早期词汇学习中的作用. 学前教育研究, (4), 48-57.
[1] LU Minghui, WANG Rong, ZHANG Limin. Relationship between Parents’ Resilience and Emotional/Behavioral Problems in Children with ASD: A Moderated Mediation Model [J]. Psychological Development and Education, 2023, 39(2): 247-254.
[2] HOU Yujia, YAN Tingrui, DENG Meng. The Impact of Maternal Attachment Style on Attachment of Children with ASD: The Mediating Role of Maternal Parenting Style [J]. Psychological Development and Education, 2020, 36(1): 28-37.
Viewed
Full text


Abstract

Cited
  Shared   
  Discussed   
No Suggested Reading articles found!
Copyright 2018 © Editorial office of Psychological Development and Education
Supported by Beijing Magtech Co.Ltd