The understanding and use of interpersonal gestures by autistic and Down's syndrome children.
Autistic kids often understand gestures but rarely start them, so probe both comprehension and spontaneous use.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers watched autistic, Down syndrome, and typical kids play. They counted how often each child understood and used hand gestures like pointing or waving. They also noted how many back-and-forth games happened with peers.
What they found
Autistic children knew what the gestures meant just as well as the other groups. Yet they rarely started the gestures themselves, especially friendly or expressive ones. Fewer peer games followed.
How this fits with other research
Ingersoll et al. (2007) later showed you can fix the gap. Their Reciprocal Imitation Training taught preschoolers with autism to copy and then spontaneously use descriptive gestures during play.
Eussen et al. (2016) sharpened the picture. They found autistic kids struggle most when an adult directly asks them to imitate a gesture, not during free play. This explains why A et al. saw low initiation even though understanding was intact.
Hermans et al. (2011) added a warning. Even when autistic children recognize a gesture, they may still be unable to imitate it. Recognition alone is not enough; motor planning matters too.
Why it matters
Check both sides of the gesture coin. A child who nods when you point may still need teaching to point back. Build initiation with playful imitation drills and naturalistic teaching moments. Watch for motor-planning issues if progress stalls.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Autistic adolescents with mild, moderate, and severe degrees of mental retardation, Down's syndrome adolescents, and clinically normal 4-, 5-, and 6-year-old children were compared in their ability to understand a set of simple instrumental gestures. Almost all gestures were perfectly understood, that is, correctly responded to, by normal children from age 5 onwards, and by all the handicapped groups, regardless of diagnosis or degree of retardation. However, the ability to initiate such gestures on verbal request was generally less good, especially in the less able autistic groups. The same subjects were unobtrusively observed in the playground and during mealtime at their schools. Peer interactions were least frequent in the autistic subjects, regardless of degree of mental retardation. However, relative to interaction frequency, the autistic group used nonverbal instrumental gestures as a means of communication to the same extent as the other groups. Unlike Down's syndrome adolescents, or normal preschool children, no autistic adolescent ever used expressive gestures.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 1988 · doi:10.1007/BF02211950