Gesture and Speech in Maternal Input to Children with Down's Syndrome

Autor/inn/en	Iverson, Jana M.; Longobardi, Emiddia; Spampinato, Katia; Caselli, M. Cristina
Titel	Gesture and Speech in Maternal Input to Children with Down's Syndrome
Quelle	In: International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 41 (2006) 3, S.235-251 (17 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1368-2822
DOI	10.1080/13682820500312151
Schlagwörter	Mothers; Nonverbal Communication; Speech; Down Syndrome; Expressive Language; Sex; Vocabulary; Parent Child Relationship; Data Analysis + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Mother; Mutter; Non-verbal communication; Nonverbale Kommunikation; Speaking; Sprechen; 'Downs Syndrome; Down''s Syndrome'; Down-Syndrom; Geschlecht; Geschlechtsverkehr; Wortschatz; Parents-child relationship; Parent-child-relation; Parent-child relationship; Eltern-Kind-Beziehung; Auswertung
Abstract	Background: Despite recent interest in relationships between maternal gesture and speech and communicative development in typically developing (TD) children, little work has examined either speech or gesture in mothers of children with Down's syndrome (DS). Aims: To compare aspects of speech and gesture production by mothers of children with DS with that of mothers of TD children. Methods & Procedures: Participants were five mothers of children with DS (mean chronological age (CA) = 47.6 months; mean mental age (MA)= 22.4 months) and five mothers of TD children. To equate for expressive language ability, children in the TD and DS groups were individually matched on the basis of: (1) gender; (2) correspondence between the TD child's chronological age and the DS child's language age; and (3) observed expressive vocabulary size. Each mother-child dyad was videotaped for approximately 30 min during free play. Data analyses focused on: (1) the number and types (speech only, gesture only, mixed) of maternal utterances; (2) the gesture types (deictic, iconic, conventional, emphatic); and (3) for mixed utterances, the structure and the temporal patterning of spoken and gestured components. Outcomes & Results: Relative to mothers of TD children, mothers of children with DS produced significantly fewer utterances overall, but the distribution of utterance types did not differ between the two groups. Relative to mothers of TD children, mothers of children with DS used proportionately more deictic gestures and made more frequent use of showing. Mothers of TD children produced more pointing gestures. Finally, mothers of children with DS produced a significantly higher proportion of utterances consisting of a single gesture and a single verbal utterance; in contrast to mothers of TD children, more complex structures (one gesture with multiple verbal utterances, one verbal utterance with multiple gestures) were never observed. Within the category of utterances consisting of a gesture and a single verbal utterance, mothers of children with DS tended to produce gestures that were held throughout the complete verbal utterance, while the gestures of mothers of TD children tended to co-occur with only a portion of the utterance. Conclusions: The findings suggest that mothers of children with DS adjust their communication to the developmental status of their child. Results are discussed in terms of the role of gesture in maternal communication and in the regulation of mother-child interaction. (Author).
Anmerkungen	Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 325 Chestnut Street Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Fax: 215-625-2940; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/default.html
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10