title: Gesture and Symbolic Representation in Italian and English-Speaking Canadian 2-Year-Olds.
abstract: Analyses of elicited pantomime, primarily of English-speaking children, show that preschool-aged children are more likely to symbolically represent an object with gestures depicting an object's form rather than its function. In contrast, anecdotal reports of spontaneous gesture production in younger children suggest that children use multiple representational techniques. This study examined the spontaneous gestures of sixty-four 2-year-old Italian children and English-speaking Canadian children, primarily from middle-class Caucasian families. The Italian children produced twice as many gestures as Canadian children in a picture-naming task but produced a similar range of representational techniques. Two-year-olds were equally likely to produce gestures depicting function as form. These data suggest young children's communicative skills are supported by a symbolic capacity that reflects contextual communicative demands.
authors.affiliation: University of Alberta.
authors.forename: Paula
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Marentette
authors.affiliation: Università di Parma.|Academy of Developmental Neuropsychology, Parma.
authors.forename: Paola
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Pettenati
authors.affiliation: Università di Parma.
authors.forename: Arianna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bello
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, Italian National Research Council.
authors.forename: Virginia
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Volterra
mesh_terms: D002170:Canada / Q000208:ethnology; D002652:Child Behavior / Q000208:ethnology*; D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D005260:Female; D005868:Gestures; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy / Q000208:ethnology; D008297:Male