Children without hearing problems also learn gestural language

2001/10/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Anatomia/Fisiologia

One of the main objectives of linguists is to analyze and understand the mechanisms we use for language acquisition, and for this it is very important to keep track of the evolution of children's linguistic competence. This time, several American linguists have studied the hand gestures of young children without hearing problems.

As you can see in the recorded videos, if you talk to children with gestures, they also start talking in that code and, as in oral language, “pronounce” loose syllables. For linguists, this shows that children are able to become aware of the rhythm that all languages have, both verbally and with gestures.

It has also been considered that the gestures they perform have no meaning. It seems that when they talk the rhythm of the gestures is slower and, in addition, they do them in the gestures area of the front of the body, not in any way.