Language and gesture in late talkers: a 1-year follow-up.
A 1-year follow-up of relationships between language and symbolic gesture in 10 children with delayed onset of early lexical skills (Thal & Bates, 1988a) is reported. Original data are reevaluated in light of new knowledge about which late talkers continued to be significantly delayed 1 year later (truly delayed) and which ones had "caught up" (late bloomers). Results showed that all 4 children who were truly delayed at follow-up had been delayed in language comprehension at the first visit, but the 6 late bloomers had been at the same level as their age-matched controls. In addition, truly delayed late talkers had been significantly poorer on all of the gesture tasks than late talkers who caught up.
Thal
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D
Center for Research in Language, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla 92093.
Tobias
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S
Morrison
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D
D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition; D003463:Cues; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D005868:Gestures; D006801:Humans; D007805:Language Development Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D008960:Models, Psychological; D013561:Symbolism