Vogt, P., Masson-Carro, I. and Mastin, J.D. (2013) Predicting vocabulary development from co-speech gestures: Duration or occurrences, that's the question Proceedings of the Tilburg Gesture Research Meeting (TiGeR 2013) pdf

Abstract In this paper, we investigate whether or not the duration of exposures to co-speech gestures predicts later vocabulary development better than occurrence frequencies. To this aim we examine the impact of child-directed co-speech gestures on vocabulary development in infants from two cultural groups within Mozambique. We find that duration and occurrence are strongly related and both can predict later vocabulary development almost equally well. In addition, we find considerable cultural differences in the amount and style of co-speech gestures addressed to infants, as well as the way these predict later vocabulary development.