NONVERBAL-COMMUNICATION IN CHILDREN UNDER 3-YEARS-OF-AGE

In order to describe the gestures that children under 3 years of age employ as linguistic support for their verbal emission, the verbal and non-verbal behavior of 14 children (mean age 2 years and 8 months) was investigated. A diastratic analysis was carried out, considering the sociocultural level of the children as the interving variable. The adult-child interaction was filmed, and the gestures of the children were registered in an observational sheet. A quantitative and qualitative analysis of the children's non-verbal behavior was performed. Although no great differences at the diastratic level were found, it was possible to identify non-verbal behavior patterns (gestures), that functioned as support for the verbal communication.