Gesture Identification for Nouns and Verbs in Typically Developing Children

Abstract

The relationship between gesture and verbal language was explored using gesture identification in children. A noun-verb distinction is well evidenced across various language systems, and therefore, a set of noun and verb gestures were considered for the gesture identification task. Typically developing children (TDC) of 3rd, 4th and 5th grade with an age range of 8-8.11, 9-9.11 and 10-10.11 years respectively served as participants for the study. The participants were presented 15 noun, and 15 verb gestures and were instructed to name them. The scores were tabulated for both nouns and verbs for the three groups of participants. Kruskal-Wallis test was used to compare the performance of participants across grades. The results revealed no difference in gesture identification scores across the participant groups, thus, showing an absence of a developmental trend in gesture identification in the population considered. Wilcoxon's signed rank test was performed as a within-group analysis, which revealed a significant difference in identifying noun vs. verb gestures in the participant groups. Further, it was inferred that the verb gestures were identified better in comparison to the noun gestures within each group. The results highlight the noun-verb distinction of gesture decoding in TDC.