Complexité syntaxique multimodale dans les récits d’enfants à développement typique et avec trouble spécifique du langage

Abstract

The aim of this study is to observe the orchestration between gestures and speech in children with and without developmental language disorder, and to highlight a possible multimodal syntactic complexity specific to each group. 23 French speaking children with DLD and 23 control children aged 7 to 10 were videorecorded during a narrative task. The analysis of the types of clauses and their co-speech gestures shows that children with DLD produced simpler clauses and more referential gestures, whereas control children complexified their narratives to a higher degree, producing more subordinate clauses using referential as well as non referential gestures. These results suggest that relation between syntax and gestures is influenced by the language disorder and the characteristics of the type of activity.