Pointing the Way Forward: The Role of Gesture in Giving and Receiving Route Direction Information INTRODUCTION and AIMS  Gestures, categorized as either Iconic, deictic, metaphoric, beat, or combined iconic and deictic, and speech are thought to be part of an integrated communication system (McNeill, 1992). The way children think and communicate about space changes as they transition from gesture only communication through to an integrated adult speech-gesture system (Capirci & Volterra, 2008).  Recent research shows that the gestures accompanying spatial route information play an important role in child comprehension and recall (Austin & Sweller, 2014). Therefore, we aimed to measure the similarities and differences between children and adults in gesture and speech content when recalling a familiar or novel route.  Our research addressed 4 questions: (1) What is the frequency of each type of gesture? (2) Are there differences in the way adults and children use gesture when recalling route directions from memory? (3) Are particular gestures produced with particular types of phrases? (4) Do gestures provide listeners with additional information not present in speech content? RQ3. Children change it up, adults are consistent  While adults produced more deictic gestures than iconic gestures for phrases with description and phrases without description, children produced iconic gestures more often than deictic for phrases with description. Children accompanied phrases without description with deictic more often than iconic. F(1,1389) = 10.72, p = .001 Sample Text Column 1 METHOD and DATA ANALYSIS  We took 4 year old children (M = 4 years 6 months, SD = 5 months) and adults (M = 20 years, SD = 5 years 5 months) on a novel route around their preschool or university.  We the asked them to recall two routes, (1) the novel route, and (2) a familiar route (e.g., for children, the route taken from home to a park, and for adults, the route taken from home to university.  Video and audio recordings were transcribed and coded for gesture and speech. Gestures were coded according to type (e.g., Iconic, deictic) and match to speech content (e.g., 1 = matched – 9 = no match). Speech content was coded into 2 types of phrases, phrases which contained description (e.g., There is a small metal gate), and those that did not (e.g., There is a gate).  Given the number of phrases/ gestures produced differed between participants, multilevel modelling was used to analyze the data. References Austin, E. E., & Sweller, N. (2014). Presentation and production: The role of gesture in spatial communication. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 122, 92-103. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2013.12.008 Capirci, O., & Volterra, V. (2008). Gesture and speech: The emergence and development of a strong and changing partnership, Gesture, 8, 22-44. doi: 10.1075/gest.8.1.04cap McNeill, D. (1992). Hand and mind: What gestures reveal about thought. University of Chicago Press. RQ2. Adults are pointing the way  Adults produced more gestures than children, particularly in the production of deictic gestures, F(1,189) = 62.52, p< .001 Sample Text Column 1 RQ1. Some gestures are used more than others  Children and adults primarily use iconic and deictic gestures when conveying route directions. Elizabeth Austin and Naomi Sweller Department of Psychology, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia RQ4. Children's gestures convey additional information  Children used gesture to convey additional information not present in speech content more often than adults, particularly for gestures accompanying phrases without description, F(1,1389) = 7.43, p = .007 Sample Text Column 1 FUTURE RESEARCH  We aim to further investigate the relationship between gesture and verbal proficiency by measuring the effect of presenting children aged 4 years and adults with gesture accompanying route directions. Contact: elizabeth.austin@students.mq.edu.au CONCLUSION  Children use iconic gestures and speech when conveying descriptions.  Children use gesture to supplement their route directions with additional information that may be beyond their current vocabulary.  Gestures play an important role in speaker’s communication of route directions from recall, especially when constrained by vocabulary . Iconic Deictic 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 No description With description Gesture Match to Speech Phrase Type Adults Children 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 Iconic Deictic Mean Number of Gestures Type of Gesture Adults Children Metaphoric Beat 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 Iconic Deictic Metaphoric Beat Iconic and Deictic Mean Number of Gestures Familiar Route Recall 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 Iconic Deictic Metaphoric Beat Iconic and Deictic Mean Number of Gestures Novel Route Recall 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Iconic Deictic Iconic Deictic Without description With description Percentage of Gesture Gesture by phrase type Adults Children