Infant Gesture and Parent Knowledge of Development
Dublin Core
Title
Infant Gesture and Parent Knowledge of Development
Creator
Miranda Sidman
Date
2018
Description
Background: Before children can communicate verbally, they use gesture to tell us what they want. Our understanding of the importance of gesture in language development has expanded greatly over the past few decades. Furthermore, the methods used to measure gesture and language development have also progressed. Gesture and language assessment rely heavily on parent reports. It has been suggested that what parents know about development has also consequences for their child’s developmental outcomes.
Aims: To validate the gesture section of the UK-CDI Words and Gestures (Alcock, Meints, & Rowland, 2017). And to explore parent knowledge of language and gesture milestones
Methods & Procedure: Twenty-seven children and their parents participated in the first experiment. The parents completed the UK-CDI W&G and the children participated in an in- person gesture validation task. Thirty parents with a child 8-18 months participated in the second experiment. They completed the UK-CDI W&G as well as our new parent knowledge questionnaire.
Results: In Experiment one, children’s score from the gesture task correlated significantly with parent-reported scores on the UK-CDI W&G. In experiment two, parents were more accurate at ordering and estimating the age of language milestones than they were gesture milestones.
Conclusions: The findings for experiment one provides more support and confidence for the UK-CDI W&G as a language assessment tool. This will provide and benefit researchers and clinicians with a standardised tool and method for assessing language norms and delays. The findings for experiment two inform us that parents are not that knowledgeable within the developmental domain of gesture. This provides us with information on where parents need to be educated to benefit the developmental outcomes of their children.
Aims: To validate the gesture section of the UK-CDI Words and Gestures (Alcock, Meints, & Rowland, 2017). And to explore parent knowledge of language and gesture milestones
Methods & Procedure: Twenty-seven children and their parents participated in the first experiment. The parents completed the UK-CDI W&G and the children participated in an in- person gesture validation task. Thirty parents with a child 8-18 months participated in the second experiment. They completed the UK-CDI W&G as well as our new parent knowledge questionnaire.
Results: In Experiment one, children’s score from the gesture task correlated significantly with parent-reported scores on the UK-CDI W&G. In experiment two, parents were more accurate at ordering and estimating the age of language milestones than they were gesture milestones.
Conclusions: The findings for experiment one provides more support and confidence for the UK-CDI W&G as a language assessment tool. This will provide and benefit researchers and clinicians with a standardised tool and method for assessing language norms and delays. The findings for experiment two inform us that parents are not that knowledgeable within the developmental domain of gesture. This provides us with information on where parents need to be educated to benefit the developmental outcomes of their children.
Subject
None
Source
Experiment 1
Method
In this experiment we attempted to validate the gesture section of the UK-CDI Words and Gestures questionnaire through responses to the questionnaire and with an in-person gesture task procedure.
Participants
Twenty-seven children and their parent participated in this study. Participants included 10 girls and 17 boys between eight and eighteen months (M= 12.5 months, SD= 2.3 months) who were recruited from the Lancaster University Babylab and through social media (e.g. Facebook). The parents who participated in this study were 26 mothers and one father. To be eligible for this study all participants had to be native British English speakers. All participants were self-selected and received a children’s book for participant payment.
Apparatus and Materials
UK-CDI Words and Gestures
The UK-CDI Words and Gestures (Alcock et al. 2013) is a parent-report questionnaire used to assess the language development of children aged eight to 18 months old. This questionnaire offers a checklist of words from several different categories (e.g., animals, toys, household items), with a total of 395 words. Parents are asked to indicate whether their child can say and understand, just understand, or does not know a word. The child obtains a score for total comprehension (sum of the words they understand) and a total score for production (sum of the words they say and understand). There is also a gesture section consisting of 57 gestures. The gesture section is divided into subsections (e.g., first communicative gestures, games, actions, pretending to be a parent, and imitating other adult actions). In the First Communicative Gesture section, parents are asked to indicate whether their child does a gesture often (two points), sometimes (one point), or not yet (zero points). For the remaining sections parents are asked to tick yes or no if their child does a gesture. A total gesture score is calculated by taking 0.5* the First Communicative Gesture section score and is then summed with the total number of Yes scores from the remaining sections. See Appendix D for full UK-CDI W&G questionnaire.
Gesture Task
The gesture task used in this study was constructed by (Alcock et al. 2013) to establish content validity of the gesture scale on the UK-CDI W&G. The gesture task consists of 10 gesture items taken from the gesture section of the UK-CDI Words and gestures. The items range from low frequency items (e.g., ‘can you give me a high five?’), medium frequency items (e.g., ‘can you put on a hat?’), and high frequency items, (e.g., ‘Can you feed the teddy/dolly?’). The stimuli were nine children’s toys required for the items on the gesture task. See Appendix B.
Procedure
Participants were asked to complete the UK-CDI Words and Gestures (Alcock et al. 2016) prior to the home visit. Participants were sent the UK-CDI Words and Gestures via an electronic link. Upon completion of the UK-CDI a home visit was scheduled and took place in each participants home. The task was administered by the researcher in a quiet room with the child and parent. Prior to the gesture task being administered, parents were pre-warned of the procedure and were told to not repeat instructions during the gesture task until cued by the researcher. Participants were asked each item first without any demonstration or cueing. If there was no response the researcher would demonstrate the gesture and say, ‘Can you show me the (x)?’. If there was still no response the parent was asked to demonstrate the gesture. (See Appendix B and C for gesture task procedure and list of stimuli). Each participant was recorded for approximately 45 minutes.
Scoring
For the gesture task, participants were scored for 30 minutes. Any time the participant was out of the cameras view or was not cooperating was not included in the video analysis. For each item on the gesture task participants scored two points for completing a gesture on their own, one point for completing a gesture after a demonstration, or zero points for not completing the gesture. Participants were also observed and scored for any spontaneous gestures exhibited during the scored time. Spontaneous gestures included any gestures exhibited by the participant that are on the UK-CDI W&G questionnaire but weren’t on the gesture task. Spontaneous gestures observed during the home-visit were given a score of one if they did it or zero if they did not.
Inter-rater Reliability
Each video was scored twice by the researcher and scored a third time by another masters student at Lancaster University. The second scorer was briefed on the nature of the videos, the UK-CDI W&G questionnaire, the gesture task, and was familiar with the content of the study. The agreement level was calculated using, Percent agreement= (agreements/ (agreements + disagreements)) x100. The two scorers reached an agreement level of 94%.
Experiment 2 Methods
This experiment was investigating what parents know about language and gesture development using two online questionnaires.
Participants
Thirty parents with a child between the ages of eight and 18 months participated in this study. All participants who participated were mothers. Participants were recruited through the Lancaster University Babylab and through social media advertisements for the study. To be eligible for this study participants had to be native British English speakers. All participants who completed the study were entered in a draw to win a £20 Amazon gift voucher.
Apparatus and Materials
UK-CDI Words and Gestures
The same version of the UK-CDI Words and Gestures (Alcock et al. 2016) was used in the second experiment.
Parent Knowledge Questionnaire
The researcher constructed a questionnaire to investigate what parents know about language and gesture development. The format of the questionnaire was based on a previous study investigating what mothers know about play and language development (Tamis- LeMonda et al. 1998). The questionnaire consisted of 11 language items and 11 gesture items. The researcher used a paired-comparisons procedure to match each item in the respective domain (language or gesture) with the remaining items, resulting in 55 pairs for language and 55 pairs for gesture. All pairs were randomized and presented in a left-right alignment. Participants were asked to select the item they believed to be more difficult and to occur at a later age. Following the paired-comparisons task, the same 11 language and gesture items were used on an age checklist and randomized. Participants were then asked to estimate the age each milestone emerged. See Appendix E for full questionnaire.
Language and Gesture Scales
The language and gesture items were chosen based on empirical findings about language and gesture development in the literature, and the previous work of Tamis-Lemonda et al. (1998). The language items gradually increased in sophistication from level one to level 11. Levels one through four represented prelinguistic communication from nondiscriminant cooing to requesting a target object. Level five through seven represented single-word utterances, from imitation to expressing possession. Levels eight to 11 represented multi-word utterances, from expressing concrete desires to then expressing memories and emotions.
The gesture items were taken from the UK-CDI W&G (Alcock et al. 2016) gesture section. Items were selected to ensure the full age range of eight to 18 months was represented.
Procedure
Participants were sent two links to complete the UK-CDI W&G questionnaire and the Parent Knowledge questionnaire. For the UK-CDI W&G questionnaire, participants were instructed to indicate whether their child could understand and say, just understand, or could not understand a word. Participants were also instructed to indicate if their child could complete a gesture or not. Upon completion of the UK-CDI W&G participants were then instructed to complete the Parent Knowledge Questionnaire.
The first task on the parent knowledge questionnaire included 11 language and 11 gesture items which rendered 55 paired comparisons (in each domain). Participants were asked to select the item in each pair they believed to be more difficult, that is, to occur later in development. Following the paired comparisons task, participants were then given the 11 language and 11 gesture items individually (and randomized) and were asked to estimate the
age they believe each milestone first occurs. From these procedures, the researcher calculated the parents’ accuracy at judging the difficulty of language and gesture items by correlating their ordering of items with the empirical scales using Spearman rho. Four accuracy scores were calculated for each participant: those obtained from paired-comparisons tasks for language and gesture separately and two age estimation accuracy scores from the language and gesture age checklists. The researcher also calculated two discrepancy scores for each participant, one for language and one for gesture. Each score estimated how discrepant parents’ judgements of age onsets were; These values were computed by summing the absolute differences between parents age estimates and the empirical ages of onsets as stated in the literature.
Ethics
After reading information about the study, parents ticked a box to give their consent to participate in this study. Ethical approval for the study was obtained from the Lancaster University Research Ethics Committee.
Method
In this experiment we attempted to validate the gesture section of the UK-CDI Words and Gestures questionnaire through responses to the questionnaire and with an in-person gesture task procedure.
Participants
Twenty-seven children and their parent participated in this study. Participants included 10 girls and 17 boys between eight and eighteen months (M= 12.5 months, SD= 2.3 months) who were recruited from the Lancaster University Babylab and through social media (e.g. Facebook). The parents who participated in this study were 26 mothers and one father. To be eligible for this study all participants had to be native British English speakers. All participants were self-selected and received a children’s book for participant payment.
Apparatus and Materials
UK-CDI Words and Gestures
The UK-CDI Words and Gestures (Alcock et al. 2013) is a parent-report questionnaire used to assess the language development of children aged eight to 18 months old. This questionnaire offers a checklist of words from several different categories (e.g., animals, toys, household items), with a total of 395 words. Parents are asked to indicate whether their child can say and understand, just understand, or does not know a word. The child obtains a score for total comprehension (sum of the words they understand) and a total score for production (sum of the words they say and understand). There is also a gesture section consisting of 57 gestures. The gesture section is divided into subsections (e.g., first communicative gestures, games, actions, pretending to be a parent, and imitating other adult actions). In the First Communicative Gesture section, parents are asked to indicate whether their child does a gesture often (two points), sometimes (one point), or not yet (zero points). For the remaining sections parents are asked to tick yes or no if their child does a gesture. A total gesture score is calculated by taking 0.5* the First Communicative Gesture section score and is then summed with the total number of Yes scores from the remaining sections. See Appendix D for full UK-CDI W&G questionnaire.
Gesture Task
The gesture task used in this study was constructed by (Alcock et al. 2013) to establish content validity of the gesture scale on the UK-CDI W&G. The gesture task consists of 10 gesture items taken from the gesture section of the UK-CDI Words and gestures. The items range from low frequency items (e.g., ‘can you give me a high five?’), medium frequency items (e.g., ‘can you put on a hat?’), and high frequency items, (e.g., ‘Can you feed the teddy/dolly?’). The stimuli were nine children’s toys required for the items on the gesture task. See Appendix B.
Procedure
Participants were asked to complete the UK-CDI Words and Gestures (Alcock et al. 2016) prior to the home visit. Participants were sent the UK-CDI Words and Gestures via an electronic link. Upon completion of the UK-CDI a home visit was scheduled and took place in each participants home. The task was administered by the researcher in a quiet room with the child and parent. Prior to the gesture task being administered, parents were pre-warned of the procedure and were told to not repeat instructions during the gesture task until cued by the researcher. Participants were asked each item first without any demonstration or cueing. If there was no response the researcher would demonstrate the gesture and say, ‘Can you show me the (x)?’. If there was still no response the parent was asked to demonstrate the gesture. (See Appendix B and C for gesture task procedure and list of stimuli). Each participant was recorded for approximately 45 minutes.
Scoring
For the gesture task, participants were scored for 30 minutes. Any time the participant was out of the cameras view or was not cooperating was not included in the video analysis. For each item on the gesture task participants scored two points for completing a gesture on their own, one point for completing a gesture after a demonstration, or zero points for not completing the gesture. Participants were also observed and scored for any spontaneous gestures exhibited during the scored time. Spontaneous gestures included any gestures exhibited by the participant that are on the UK-CDI W&G questionnaire but weren’t on the gesture task. Spontaneous gestures observed during the home-visit were given a score of one if they did it or zero if they did not.
Inter-rater Reliability
Each video was scored twice by the researcher and scored a third time by another masters student at Lancaster University. The second scorer was briefed on the nature of the videos, the UK-CDI W&G questionnaire, the gesture task, and was familiar with the content of the study. The agreement level was calculated using, Percent agreement= (agreements/ (agreements + disagreements)) x100. The two scorers reached an agreement level of 94%.
Experiment 2 Methods
This experiment was investigating what parents know about language and gesture development using two online questionnaires.
Participants
Thirty parents with a child between the ages of eight and 18 months participated in this study. All participants who participated were mothers. Participants were recruited through the Lancaster University Babylab and through social media advertisements for the study. To be eligible for this study participants had to be native British English speakers. All participants who completed the study were entered in a draw to win a £20 Amazon gift voucher.
Apparatus and Materials
UK-CDI Words and Gestures
The same version of the UK-CDI Words and Gestures (Alcock et al. 2016) was used in the second experiment.
Parent Knowledge Questionnaire
The researcher constructed a questionnaire to investigate what parents know about language and gesture development. The format of the questionnaire was based on a previous study investigating what mothers know about play and language development (Tamis- LeMonda et al. 1998). The questionnaire consisted of 11 language items and 11 gesture items. The researcher used a paired-comparisons procedure to match each item in the respective domain (language or gesture) with the remaining items, resulting in 55 pairs for language and 55 pairs for gesture. All pairs were randomized and presented in a left-right alignment. Participants were asked to select the item they believed to be more difficult and to occur at a later age. Following the paired-comparisons task, the same 11 language and gesture items were used on an age checklist and randomized. Participants were then asked to estimate the age each milestone emerged. See Appendix E for full questionnaire.
Language and Gesture Scales
The language and gesture items were chosen based on empirical findings about language and gesture development in the literature, and the previous work of Tamis-Lemonda et al. (1998). The language items gradually increased in sophistication from level one to level 11. Levels one through four represented prelinguistic communication from nondiscriminant cooing to requesting a target object. Level five through seven represented single-word utterances, from imitation to expressing possession. Levels eight to 11 represented multi-word utterances, from expressing concrete desires to then expressing memories and emotions.
The gesture items were taken from the UK-CDI W&G (Alcock et al. 2016) gesture section. Items were selected to ensure the full age range of eight to 18 months was represented.
Procedure
Participants were sent two links to complete the UK-CDI W&G questionnaire and the Parent Knowledge questionnaire. For the UK-CDI W&G questionnaire, participants were instructed to indicate whether their child could understand and say, just understand, or could not understand a word. Participants were also instructed to indicate if their child could complete a gesture or not. Upon completion of the UK-CDI W&G participants were then instructed to complete the Parent Knowledge Questionnaire.
The first task on the parent knowledge questionnaire included 11 language and 11 gesture items which rendered 55 paired comparisons (in each domain). Participants were asked to select the item in each pair they believed to be more difficult, that is, to occur later in development. Following the paired comparisons task, participants were then given the 11 language and 11 gesture items individually (and randomized) and were asked to estimate the
age they believe each milestone first occurs. From these procedures, the researcher calculated the parents’ accuracy at judging the difficulty of language and gesture items by correlating their ordering of items with the empirical scales using Spearman rho. Four accuracy scores were calculated for each participant: those obtained from paired-comparisons tasks for language and gesture separately and two age estimation accuracy scores from the language and gesture age checklists. The researcher also calculated two discrepancy scores for each participant, one for language and one for gesture. Each score estimated how discrepant parents’ judgements of age onsets were; These values were computed by summing the absolute differences between parents age estimates and the empirical ages of onsets as stated in the literature.
Ethics
After reading information about the study, parents ticked a box to give their consent to participate in this study. Ethical approval for the study was obtained from the Lancaster University Research Ethics Committee.
Publisher
Lancaster University
Format
Data/SPSS.sav
Identifier
Sidman2018
Contributor
Rebecca James
Rights
Open
Relation
None
Language
English
Type
Data
Coverage
LA1 4YF
LUSTRE
Supervisor
Dr. Katie Alcock
Project Level
MSc
Topic
Clinical, Developmental
Sample Size
Twenty-seven children
Statistical Analysis Type
Correlation, psychometrics, t-test
Files
Citation
Miranda Sidman , “Infant Gesture and Parent Knowledge of Development,” LUSTRE, accessed May 18, 2024, https://www.johnntowse.com/LUSTRE/items/show/77.