The Influence of Gesture and Early Language on the Emergence of Executive Function during Childhood.

摘要

The current study examined the relations among children's gestures, language, and EF across the first 4 years of life. The study was specifically interested in determining whether children's gestures, representative of their early symbolic development, were related to their language skills and if these abilities were predictive of later EF capacities. Utilizing longitudinal data from the Family Life Project, the study used both specific and general models to examine relations between children's gestures, language skills at 24 and 36 months, and in turn EF. The models depicted both naturalistic observations and standardized assessments of infants' gestures at 15 months, and language skills at 24 and 36 months. The findings revealed that both observed (specific model) and standardized (general model) measures of children's gestures, and language skills had a significant association with later EF. As predicted, the study found a mediated relation between children's gestures and later EF abilities, expressed through their language skills. Thus, the findings provided evidence in support of several developmental theories (Marcovitch & Zelazo, 2009; Zelazo & Frye, 1998; Zelazo, et al., 2003) that have highlighted the importance of children's language abilities in representing the conflict inherent to EF tasks.