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Article published In: Gesture
Vol. 19:2/3 (2020) ► pp.299–334

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Gestural symbolic strategies in children with Down syndrome

 | ‘Roma Tre’ University of Rome
 | Azienda Unità Sanitaria Locale Parma
 | Italian National Research Council
 | ‘Sapienza’ University of Rome
 | Italian National Research Council
Published online: 28 September 2021
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https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.20002.bel
Abstract
In early communicative development, children with Down syndrome (DS) make extensive use of gestures to compensate for articulatory difficulties. Here, we analyzed the symbolic strategies that underlie this gesture production, compared to that used by typically developing children. Using the same picture-naming task, 79 representational gestures produced by 10 children with DS and 42 representational gestures produced by 10 typically developing children of comparable developmental age (3;1 vs. 2;9, respectively) were collected. The gestures were analyzed and classified according to four symbolic strategies. The two groups performed all of the strategies, with no significant differences for either choice or frequency of the strategies used. The item analysis highlighted that some photographs tended to elicit the use of the same strategy in both groups. These results indicate that similar symbolic strategies are active in children with DS as in typically developing children, which suggests interesting similarities in their symbolic development.
Article outline
  • Introduction
    • Symbolic and gestural abilities in typically developing children
    • Symbolic and gestural abilities in children with Down syndrome
    • Aims of the present study
  • Methods
    • Participants
    • Material and procedures
      • The picture-naming game
      • The Italian MB-CDI
    • Coding
      • Gesture identification
      • Symbolic strategies
      • Reliability
    • Statistical analysis
  • Results
    • Lexical accuracy and gestural production through the MB-CDI and PiNG
    • Distribution of symbolic strategies
    • The item effect in the use of the different symbolic strategies
  • Discussion
    • Lexical accuracy and gestural production
    • Symbolic strategies: Distributions and item effects
    • Limitations of the present study
  • Conclusion
  • References
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