CAN CHILDREN DETECT CONCEPTUAL INFORMATION CONVEYED THROUGH OTHER CHILDRENS NONVERBAL BEHAVIORS

Research suggests that children produce nonverbal behaviors when inter acting with adults and peers. This study investigates how well other c hildren can detect 1 specific type of nonverbal behavior: representati onal gestures. Eighteen children (12 Caucasian girls and 6 Caucasian b oys; M = 7 years, 11 months) watched videotaped stimuli of children ve rbally and gesturally explaining a conceptual problem. Multiple method s were used to assess whether children could detect information convey ed through the stimulus children's speech and gesture. Results show th at these multiple methods converge to demonstrate that children attend not only to other children's speech but also to their gestures. Impli cations of nonverbal detection for peer interactions and cognitive dev elopment are discussed.