Children comprehend iconic gestures relatively later than deictic gestures. Previous research with English‐learning children indicated that they could comprehend iconic gestures at 26 months, a pattern whose extension to other languages is not yet known. The present study examined Turkish‐learning children's iconic gesture comprehension and its relation to their receptive vocabulary knowledge. Turkish‐learning children between the ages of 22‐ and 30‐month‐olds (N = 92, M = 25.6 months, SD = 1.6; 51 girls) completed a gesture comprehension task in which they were asked to choose the correct picture that matched the experimenter's speech and iconic gestures. They were also administered a standardized receptive vocabulary test. Children's performance in the gesture comprehension task increased with age, which was also related to their receptive vocabulary knowledge. When children were categorized into younger and older age groups based on the median age (i.e., 26 months—the age at which iconic gesture comprehension was present for English‐learning children), only the older group performed at chance level in the task. At the same time, receptive vocabulary was positively related to gesture comprehension for younger but not older children. These findings suggest a shift in iconic gesture comprehension at around 26 months and indicate a possible link between receptive vocabulary knowledge and iconic gesture comprehension, particularly for children younger than 26 months.

中文翻译：

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早期标志性手势理解与接受性语言之间的联系


儿童理解标志性手势的时间相对较晚于手势。先前对英语学习儿童的研究表明，他们在 26 个月大时可以理解标志性手势，这种模式的推广范围尚不清楚。本研究考察了土耳其语学习儿童的标志性手势理解及其与接受词汇知识的关系。22 至 30 个月大的土耳其语学习儿童（N = 92，M = 25.6 个月，SD = 1.6;51 名女孩）完成了一项手势理解任务，要求他们选择与实验者的语音和标志性手势相匹配的正确图片。他们还接受了标准化的接受性词汇测试。儿童在手势理解任务中的表现随着年龄的增长而增加，这也与他们的接受词汇知识有关。当根据中位年龄（即 26 个月——英语学习儿童出现标志性手势理解的年龄）将儿童分为年龄较小的年龄组和较大的年龄组时，只有年龄较大的组在任务中以偶然性水平执行。同时，对于年龄较小但年龄较大的儿童，接受性词汇与手势理解呈正相关。这些发现表明，在 26 个月左右，标志性手势理解发生了变化，并表明接受性词汇知识和标志性手势理解之间可能存在联系，尤其是对于 26 个月以下的儿童。