Gestures and speech during shared picture-book reading with preschoolers with specific language impairments

Several studies have shown children with specific language impairment (SLI) to be less conversationally responsive than typically-developing (TD) children; however, it is not clear whether these children present a “gesture advantage” as found in other children with atypical development. This study examined (a) the relationship between gesture and speech in children with SLI as compared with TD children during shared book-reading with their mothers, (b) the effectiveness of maternal communicative strategies to elicit conversational responsiveness in children with SLI. Fourteen preschoolers with SLI, 14 age-matched TD children, and 14 MLU-matched TD children were videotaped during two sessions of shared picture-book reading with their mothers at home. Each child and maternal communicative act was coded on the basis of modality (Vocal, Gestural, Bimodal); each maternal question according to the level of provided support; and each child’s answer according to linguistic and content adequacy. Children with SLI, as compared to younger TD children matched by linguistic competence, produced significantly fewer Vocal utterances than age-matched TD children. No differences were found in maternal communicative modalities among the three groups. Results from sequential analysis reveal that when maternal questions were accompanied by gestures, they had a higher probability of eliciting answers from children with SLI and MLU-matched children, regardless of the answer’s adequacy. Interestingly, only maternal questions containing a main clue about the requested information were significantly followed by acceptable answers from children with SLI. These initial results suggest that bimodal and highly supportive maternal questions facilitate the conversational participation of children with SLI.