Playing in English vs. Spanish: Examining the role of bilingual caregivers’ gesture use during toy play interactions

• Isabela March, Cognitive Science, University of Delaware

• Giovanna Morini, Communication Sciences & Disorders, University of Delaware

Previous research has examined the impact of caregiver gestures during play on children’s language acquisition, primarily focusing on White, English, and monolingual populations, generally highlighting the importance of caregiver gestures. However, a more diverse inquiry is needed due to the increasing linguistic diversity of the United States, with a specific influx of Spanish-English bilingual children. The data in this study are based on 3 sets of Spanish-English bilingual caregivers and their bilingual children. Dyads each participated in two 15-minute play sessions (one in English and one in Spanish), which were then transcribed and coded using a coding scheme based on previous literature. A set of 5 English monolingual caregivers was also included as a baseline comparison. Caregivers’ gestures were coded as co-occurring with or without speech and coded for type of gesture (e.g., deictic, representational, positive feedback, beat, conventional). Although our sample size is small, preliminary descriptive analysis shows that deictic gestures are the overwhelming majority of types of gestures used, regardless of language condition. However, the average use of deictic gestures for bilinguals in collapsed language conditions was proportionally higher  (71% of gestures) than for English monolingual caregivers (60%).  When playing in English, bilingual caregivers produced more deictic and positive feedback than English monolinguals and fewer conventional gestures. For bilingual and monolingual caregivers,  more gestures occurred with speech than without. On average, there was a higher co-occurrence of gestures used with speech in the English play sessions than in the Spanish sessions. Although this work is limited due to a small sample size, it remains important in filling a gap in the study of the use of caregiver gestures during play and, more broadly, bilingual language acquisition. Future findings from our continued data collection are essential for linguistically diverse research and informing educational, child-rearing, and speech therapy practices.