The role of gesture in children's comprehension of spoken language: Now they need it, now they don't

Two experiments investigated gesture as a form of external support for spok en language comprehension. In both experiments, children selected blocks ac cording to a set of videotaped instructions. Across trials, the instruction s were given using no gesture, gestures that reinforced speech, and gesture s that conflicted with speech. Experiment 1 used spoken messages that were complex for preschool children but not for kindergarten children. Reinforci ng gestures facilitated speech comprehension for preschool children but not for kindergarten children, and conflicting gestures hindered comprehension for kindergarten children but nor for preschool children. Experiment 2 tes ted preschool children with simpler spoken messages. Unlike Experiment 1, p reschool children's comprehension was not facilitated by reinforcing gestur es. However, children's comprehension also was not hindered by conflicting gestures. Thus, the effects of gesture on speech comprehension depend both on the relation of gesture to speech, and on the complexity of the spoken m essage.