An Early Intervention in Gestural Communication in Chilean Children from Psychosocially At-Risk Backgrounds and Its Impact on Language Skills at 18 Months Old

Abstract

The emergence of symbolic gestures is a solid milestone in early childhood development. Interventions that intentionally promote them have contributed to children’s language, cognitive, and socioemotional development. However, these studies have mainly been conducted in the USA with middle-SES families, and such research has considerably decreased in recent years. This study aimed to assess the effects of an intentional intervention for promoting symbolic gestures in the expressive and comprehensive language of Chilean children who were aged 18 months. Sixty-nine highly psychosocially at-risk children were assessed at 5–9 months and then at 18 months. Teachers from half of the nurseries involved in the study received the intervention. The assessment included a report on the children’s gestural vocabulary, the CDI, and the language scale of BSID-III. The results showed that the children in the intervention group had a significantly greater gestural vocabulary at 18 months and they performed better in their expressive language than the children in the control group did. Additionally, this study aimed to analyze if this intervention affected children differentially in consideration of their language development (adequate and at-risk). The results showed that children with adequate development improved their language when they received the intervention, but those from the at-risk group did not. The implications of these results for the design of interventions at an early age are discussed while considering children from different sociocultural backgrounds and with different language development.

Keywords

• gestures
• communication
• early infancy
• language
• development