Iconic number gestures
Naturalistic use by children and parents in the early home environment
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9796271 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Madeleine Oswald (0000-0002-0740-7343, University of Chicago), Alana Foley (University of Chicago), Susan Goldin-Meadow (0000-0001-8536-2673, University of Chicago), Susan C Levine (0000-0002-8579-9290, University of Chicago) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 62 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 817-829 |
| Publication date | 2026-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Developmental Psychology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0012-1649 • E-ISSN: 1939-0599 |
| Publisher | American Psychological Association (APA) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1037/dev0002058 |
| PMID | 40875321 |
| OpenAlex | W4413776494 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 23 |
A growing body of research suggests that children's use and understanding of cardinal number gestures (e.g., raising two fingers to indicate "two") reflect greater cardinal number knowledge than their number words alone (e.g., Butts, 2025; Gibson et al., 2019, 2022; Gunderson et al., 2015; Orrantia et al., 2024; Oswald et al., 2025). The present study adds to these findings by examining how often, and in what contexts, parents and their young children use iconic number gestures, with a particular focus on how these gestures are used in relation to number words. In a naturalistic, at-home longitudinal study, we found that 14- to 58-month-old children and their parents used iconic number gestures far less often than number words. Parents used more number words than the children, but children used more number gestures than the parents. Both children and parents used number gestures more often for nonpresent entities than for present entities, even though they both displayed the opposite pattern for number words (i.e., more number words for present than nonpresent entities). Finally, children were more likely to use number gestures if their parents used them (some parents never used number gestures during the observations), but neither parents' nor children's use of number gestures early on predicted children's cardinal number knowledge at 46 months of age. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Child development · Developmental psychology · Gesture · Linguistics · Naturalism · Naturalistic observation · Nonverbal communication · Child and Animal Learning Development · Cognitive and developmental aspects of mathematical skills · Psychology · Reading and Literacy Development · Social Psychology
Some types of parent number talk count more than others: relations between parents’ input and children’s cardinal-number knowledge
The mismatch between gesture and speech as an index of transitional knowledge
Cross-linguistic regularities in the frequency of number words
Differences in Early Gesture Explain SES Disparities in Child Vocabulary Size at School Entry
Sources of variability in children’s language growth
One, two, three, four, nothing more
Gesture Paves the Way for Language Development
Early gesture selectively predicts later language learning
Creating ad hoc graphical representations of number
Language development beyond the here-and-now
Causal Effects of Parent Number Talk on Preschoolers’ Number Knowledge
Maternal label and gesture use affects acquisition of specific object names
Gesture as a support for word learning
Which preschool mathematics competencies are most predictive of fifth grade achievement
Unpacking the Gestures of Chemistry Learners
Preschool children's mathematical knowledge
Hands in the air
Less is not always more
School readiness and later achievement
More gestures than answers
What counts in the development of young children's number knowledge
What’s Past Is Prologue
New evidence about language and cognitive development based on a longitudinal study
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |