Coming of age in gesture: A comparative study of gesturing and pantomiming in older children and adults

Research on the co-development of gestures and speech mainly focuses on children in early phases of language acquisition. This study investigates how children in later development use gestures to communicate, and whether the strategies they use are similar to adults’. Using a referential paradigm, we compared pantomimes and gestures produced by children (M=9) and adults, and found both groups to use gestures similarly when pantomiming, but differently in spontaneously produced gestures (in terms of frequency of gesturing, and of the representation techniques chosen to depict the objects). This suggests that older children have the necessary tools for full gestural expressivity, but when speech is available they rely less on gestures than adults, indicating both streams aren’t fully integrated yet.