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Use of Gesture Development in Profiling Children's Prelinguistic Communication Skills

Contact author: Elizabeth Crais, Division of Speech & Hearing Sciences, CB #7190, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7190. E-mail: bcrais{at}med.unc.edu.

Purpose: Comparing children's skills across and within domains of development has become a standard in providing early intervention services. Profiling a child's strengths and challenges can help in making decisions regarding eligibility, diagnosis, and intervention. Profiling is particularly important for children who are not yet talking, due to the variability in production skills and the lack of guidelines as to which children are "at risk" for communication deficits versus those who are "late talkers." One area underutilized in profiling is gesture development, despite the fact that research has indicated that the amount and type of gesture use can help in early identification and is predictive of later language.

Method: To guide practicing professionals and researchers in using gesture development to profile children's communication skills, this article provides an overview of the types of gestures and their development, describes assessment methods and tools to document gesture development, pinpoints behaviors and factors important in identifying children with disabilities, and ends with brief examples of using profiling in assessment and intervention planning.

Conclusions: Gesture use should be an important component in profiling children's communication skills, and this type of profiling can enhance both the assessment and intervention process.

Key Words: prelinguistic communication, gesture development, gesture assessment

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