Abstract
Parental report data, Japanese Early Communicative Development Inventory, for 21 19-38 months language delayed children and 176 8-16 months normal children at no word or at the single-word stage showed the gesture and language were closely related, especially gestural measures were correlated with language comprehension when controlling for CA. Strong association was found between interpersonal gestures and language production for language delayed children. The children without speech but with substitution play were supposed to have developed symbolic function and have problems in the ability to contorol the speech production system. It is important to assess symbolic function underlying gestural and language development for language delayed children to find the clues for deficit in speech.
