Hand gestures help toddlers perform at school

ENCOURAGING very young children to communicate with gestures may help them learn to talk and do better at school, new research suggests.

Scientists found 14-month-old toddlers who “spoke” extensively with their hands had much larger vocabularies at the age of four than those who did not and were also more likely to from higher-income families with well-educated parents.

The findings could help explain why some children from low-income families appear to be disadvantaged when they start school, said the US researchers. Prof Susan Goldin-Meadow, of the University of Chicago, said: “Vocabulary is a key predictor of school success and is a primary reason why children from low-income families enter school at a greater risk of failure than their peers from advantaged families.”

The researchers recorded videos of parents with their children and found 14-month-old children from high-income, well-educated families used gesture to convey about 24 different meanings, while children from lower-income families conveyed only 13.

In school, children from higher-income families had a comprehension vocabulary of 117 words compared with 93 for children from lower-income families.