Using Gestures to Help Children With Developmental Language Disorder in Word Learning

Children with developmental language disorder show significantly lower word-learning performance than typically developing age-matched children do. Although gesture is used to support speech in some special education classrooms for children with developmental language disorder, only a limited amount of research has shown empirical evidence for a multimodality effect on word learning. This study aimed to investigate the role of gestures in word learning with children presenting with developmental language disorder (aged 5-10) in comparison to typically developing children. Ten children with developmental language disorder were compared to 10 chronological-age-matched children and 10 language-age-matched children. These 30 children learned new phonological labels for common concepts under three conditions: with the help of iconic gestures, with arbitrary gestures, and without gestures. The results indicate a scaffolding effect of both types of gesture for novel-word retrieval in comparison to the control condition. No group differences were reported: All children benefited from gesture. These data suggest that using gestures with both children with developmental language disorder and typically developing children may support their spoken language development. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.