The development of gesture with and without speech in hearing and deaf children
The development of gesture with and without speech in hearing and deaf children
The first goal of this chapter is to explore the forms and functions that gesture assumes in the early stages of language learning. It is found that gesture plays a complementary role with respect to the speech it accompanies, and that it begins to form an integrated system with speech at early stages in language development. The second goal is to explore gesture's fate when children are unable to learn a spoken language; as when, for example, a child is profoundly deaf. If a child is born to deaf to signing parents, that child will learn sign language as naturally and effortlessly as hearing children learn spoken language.
Keywords: hearing children, deaf children, gesture, speech, language learning, language development
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