Comprehension of conventional gestures in typical children, children with autism spectrum disorders and children with language disorders

Conventional gestures (CG) contribute to communication and are a precursor of verbal language. The aim of our study was: (a) to analyse the developmental course of CG comprehension in typical children; (b) from a clinical perspective, to document how children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and language disorder (LD) can understand CG. Comprehension of CG was evaluated through a video-based testing. The protocol consisted of 15 arbitrary gestures and 15 iconic gestures. We recruited 262 typical children aged from 3 to 10years old and 55 children with communication impairments aged from 4 to 8years old: 36 children with ASD and 19 with LD. CG comprehension increased during the early development of typical children and the improvement of iconic gestures comprehension occurred earlier than that of arbitrary ones. Children with ASD received lower CG scores than typical children and LD children. For each gesture taken separately, children with LD performed better than not only ASD children but typical children as well. Furthermore, when we performed the analysis with both arbitrary and iconic gesture, children with LD outperformed both children with ASD and TD children. Our results suggest a dissociation between oral language comprehension and language gesture comprehension in children with LD and a deficit in both oral language and language gesture comprehension in children with ASD. Les gestes conventionnels contribuent à la communication et sont un précurseur du langage verbal. Le but de notre étude était : (a) d’analyser le développement de la compréhension des gestes conventionnels chez les enfants typiques, (b) d’explorer cliniquement comment les enfants atteints de troubles du spectre autistique et de troubles du langage oral comprennent les gestes conventionnels. La compréhension des gestes conventionnels a été évaluée au moyen d’un test vidéo. Le protocole consistait en 15 gestes arbitraires et 15 gestes iconiques. Nous avons recruté 262 enfants typiques âgés de 3 à 10ans et 55 enfants atteints de troubles de la communication âgés de 4 à 8ans : 36 enfants atteints de troubles du spectre autistique et 19 atteints de troubles du langage oral. La compréhension des gestes conventionnels augmente au cours du développement chez les enfants typiques. L’amélioration de la compréhension des gestes iconiques survient plus tôt que celle des gestes arbitraires. Les enfants atteints de troubles du spectre autistique ont des scores de compréhension des gestes c