The purpose of this thesis is to give a detailed account of gesture and movement phenomena observed in children. The analysis method is multimodal interaction analysis, otherwise known as Ethnomethodological Conversation Analysis (EMCA). The analysis is based on children performing the Picture Naming Game (PiNG), a vocabulary test for young children. During the PiNG, the researcher will place printed pictures in front of the child, and the child is tasked with naming the de- picted object. The central phenomenon discovered and analysed with multimodal interaction analysis in this thesis was that the children would occasionally pick up a picture and turn it around. These children’s turning movements are generally anal- ysed as being fidgets, and possibly related to increased cognitive taxation, or, seen as social, and part of a metaphoric gesture shared with the researcher. Addition- ally, the researcher’s interactions are also examined. The researcher uses additional prompts as interactional tools during the PiNG, and four types of such prompts are identified, each with gestural and verbal counterparts. Some proposals for future research that would complement this current thesis are offered, and finally some ideas for future research inspired by this thesis are discussed.

The aim of the present study was to examine receptive and expressive lexicon, as well as gesture production among children with and without developmental language disorder (DLD), Using the Swedish translation of the Picture Naming Game (PiNG). The parental evaluation Swedish Communicative Development Inventory III (SCDI III) was used to determine whether the results from PiNG and SCDI III were consistent. In this study, 10 children with DLD (study group) and 11 age-matched children with typical language development (control group) between 52 and 70 months of age participated. The participants were tested with PiNG, which is a test that examines reception and production of single nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and prepositions. The guardians then completed SCDI III, which contains questions about the language abilities of the child. Gesture production in the form of deictic, iconic and conventional gestures was examined in conjunction with the use of PiNG. The results showed lower results for the study group on PiNG and SCDI III in comparison with the control group. The study group displayed a higher number of gestures than the control group, and in the former group, the use of gestures was positively correlated with the results from PiNG. In the study group, iconic gestures were used to compensate for language difficulties. The results from PiNG and SCDI III were not consistent. The age of the participants problably did not affect any results. The results from the present study indicate that PiNG may be useful when examining lexicon and gesture production among children with DLD. Both groups achieved high results on PiNG which may have affected the use of gestures and also possible correlations. For future studies, it is therefore recommended to apply PiNG on a group of younger children with DLD.

Syftet med föreliggande studie var att göra jämförelser mellan små barn med typisk språklig utveckling och små barn med språkstörning avseende impressivt och expressivt ordförråd samt användning av gester. Fyra barn med typisk språkutveckling rekryterades till studien. Dessa barn var köns- och åldersmatchade med redan insamlat material från fyra barn med språkstörning. Åldrarna på barnen (en flicka, tre pojkar) var 33–51 månader. Impressivt och expressivt ordförråd testades med Picture Naming Game (PiNG) och testsituationen videofilmades för att möjliggöra undersökning av barnens användning av deiktiska, ikoniska och emblematiska gester. Resultaten visar att barnen med typisk språklig utveckling på gruppnivå erhöll ett högre resultat på PiNG jämfört med de matchade barnen med språkstörning. Barnen med typisk utveckling utförde ett lägre antal totalt använda gester, ett lägre antal deiktiska och ikoniska gester samt hade färre gester synkroniserade med tal jämfört med barnen med språkstörning. Barnen med typisk språklig utveckling utförde fler emblematiska gester samt hade en högre andel gester synkroniserade med tal än barnen med språkstörning. Endast en av de uppmätta skillnaderna uppnådde statistisk signifikans vilket identifierades i användandet av emblem under expressiva testuppgifter där TD-gruppen använde signifikant fler emblem än barnen i DLD-gruppen. Då inga signifikanta skillnader förelåg mellan gruppernas totala PiNG-resultat och användning av gester gjordes en gemensam korrelationsanalys där en stark och signifikant negativ korrelation (p=0,01832) mellan barnens ålder och användning av ikoniska gester identifierades. Resultatet i föreliggande studie indikerar att gestanvändningen kan vara värdefull att inkludera vid bedömning av barn och utredning av eventuell språkstörning. Det finns dock behov av fler studier inom detta område och analys av en större mängd data behövs. / The purpose of the present study was to make comparisons between young children with typical language development and young children with developmental language disorder regarding impressive and expressive vocabulary and use of gestures. Four children with typical language development were recruited to the study. These children were sex- and age-matched with already collected data from four children with language impairment. The ages of the children (one girl, three boys) were 33- 51 months. Receptive and expressive vocabulary was tested with the Picture Naming Game (PiNG) and the test situation was video recorded to enable examination of the children's use of deictic, iconic and emblematic gestures. The results show that the children with typical language development at the group level obtained a higher result on the PiNG compared to the age- and gender matched children with a developmental language disorder. The children with typical development performed a lower number of total gestures, a lower number of deictic and iconic gestures as well as fewer gestures synchronized with speech in comparison to the children with developmental language disorder. The children with typical language development performed more emblematic gestures and had a higher percentage of gestures synchronized with speech than the children with language disorder. Only one significant difference was identified between the groups. Statistical significance was identified in the use of emblematic gestures during expressive tasks of PiNG where the children in the TD-group used significantly more emblematic gestures than the children in the DLD-group. As there were no significant differences between the groups regarding the total result of PiNG and the use of gestures, a joint correlation analysis was performed where a strong and significant negative correlation (p=0.01832) between the children's age and the use of iconic gestures was identified. The results of the present study indicate that the use of gestures can be valuable to include when assessing children and investigating possible language disorders. However, there is a need for more studies in this area and analysis of a larger amount of data is needed.

The aim of the present study was to examine receptive and expressive lexicon, as well as gesture production among children with and without developmental language disorder (DLD), using the Swedish translation of the Picture Naming Game (PiNG). The parental evaluation Swedish Communicative Development Inventory III (SCDI III) was used to determine whether the results from PiNG and SCDI III were consistent. In this study, 10 children with DLD (study group) and 11 age-matched children with typical language development (control group) between 52 and 70 months of age participated. The participants were tested with PiNG, which is a test that examines reception and production of single nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and prepositions. The guardians then completed SCDI III, which contains questions about the language abilities of the child. Gesture production in the form of deictic, iconic and conventional gestures was examined in conjunction with the use of PiNG. The results showed lower results for the study group on PiNG and SCDI III in comparison with the control group. The study group displayed a higher number of gestures than the control group, and in the former group, the use of gestures was positively correlated with the results from PiNG. In the study group, iconic gestures were used to compensate for language difficulties. The results from PiNG and SCDI III were not consistent. The age of the participants problably did not affect any results. The results from the present study indicate that PiNG may be useful when examining lexicon and gesture production among children with DLD. Both groups achieved high results on PiNG which may have affected the use of gestures and also possible correlations. For future studies, it is therefore recommended to apply PiNG on a group of younger children with DLD.