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Effect of sex and dyad composition on speech and gesture development of singleton and twin children

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2021

Sumeyra OZTURK ,
Ebru PINAR ,
F. Nihan KETREZ  and
Şeyda ÖZÇALIŞKAN
Sumeyra OZTURK*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, USA
Ebru PINAR
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, USA
F. Nihan KETREZ
Affiliation:
Department of English Language Teacher Education, İstanbul Bilgi University, Turkey
Şeyda ÖZÇALIŞKAN
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, USA
*
Address for correspondence: Sumeyra Ozturk, Department of Psychology Georgia State University P.O. Box 5010 Atlanta, GA 30302 Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Children's early vocabulary shows sex differences – with boys having smaller vocabularies than age-comparable girls – a pattern that becomes evident in both singletons and twins. Twins also use fewer words than their singleton peers. However, we know relatively less about sex differences in early gesturing in singletons or twins, and also how singletons and twins might differ in their early gesture use. We examine the patterns of speech and gesture production of singleton and twin children, ages 0;10-to-3;4, during structured parent-child play. Boys and girls – singleton or twin – were similar in speech and gesture production, but singletons used a greater amount and diversity of speech and gestures than twins. There was no effect of twin dyad type (boy-boy, girl-girl, boy-girl) on either speech or gesture production. These results confirm earlier research showing close integration between gesture and speech in singletons in early language development, and further extend these patterns to twin children.

Keywords

twinssingletonslanguage developmentgesture-speech integrationsex differences
Type
Article
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 48 , Special Issue 5: Special issue on Testable Theories of Core First Language Acquisition , September 2021 , pp. 1048 - 1066
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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