Give yourself a hand: The role of gesture and working memory in preschoolers’ numerical knowledge

 

    When one was in adolescence a teacher, family member, someone with a little more knowledge  that is older might ask how many circles are a particular page  or what is the answer to 2+5.  One might use gestures such as counting on their a hand or a mnemonic strategy to figure out a particular answer. Rachel Gordon, Nicole R. Scalise, and Geetha B. Ramani of the Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology discusses the correlation that hand gestures have on working memory with a focus on pre school children. 

    These researchers further explain that these hand gestures “can be beneficial in math context to reduce the users cognitive load in correspondence to working memory. Gordon et. Al also emphasize the importance of learning these math skills early so that later success can be accomplished.  Working memory is a  system with only so much capacity that stores information for short periods of time before going into long term memory. Moreover, these researchers used the Give-a-Number task and cardinality principle to measure how gesture plays a role in working memory. The Give-a-Number task and cardinality task go hand in hand. When seeing if children can generate a set of a given number (Give-a-Number task) the highest set size that is generated  provides insight and understanding to the researcher of what level that pre-school student might be at. In all, the researchers found that through the performance  cardinality task that their was a positive relation given the use of gestures. On the other hand when it comes to the variable (age) the children gestures were not significantly related but financial backgrounds had a influence on ways that these children carried out gestures. 

    In addition to, another article “How gesture changes our mind” by Susan Goldin Meadow we see not only does gesture help pre school children understand mathematical concepts but we see how gesture is accompanied in everyday lifestyle in this case changing out minds. In the article, it was stated that “ Gesturing allows learners to take ideas that are not inherently spatial and lay them out in space, thus “spatializing” them. “ Meaning in the article given before this quote the researchers had children using gesture when explaining moral dilemmas and told the other group of children to not use gesture while explaining more dilemmas. They found that it was easier for children to explain using gesture which goes to show these gestures use in academics are transferable to real life situations. For instance , if any younger kid that is still learning to formulate speech is trying to explain to you that his favorite show he blues clues the same principles will apply in that he/ or she will try to get you to understand them using gestures.

The evidence from these two articles support that gesture is a thing that not if everyone most people use to learn and obtain new information or even explain concepts to others. Learning that gesture plays a role in and everything can make one ponder and think of ways that he/she may incorporate gesture to use in academics or daily life. Both of these articles articulate ways that provide support and show gesture is something that is positively correlate in how move about throughout the world.

panelSusanGoldin-MeadowPersonEnvelope, Author links open overlay, et al. “How Gesture Works to Change Our Minds.” Trends in Neuroscience and Education, Urban & Fischer, 12 Mar. 2014, https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S2211949314000039?token=97D8850B4E6FE84EDE0D5A7FFF0D545025994834E1C9622DD7E3D679D24F9FCB0AAC95C303A86302A3E2A5F080F2E501&originRegion=us-east-1&originCreation=20221013213635.  

 Ramani, Geetha B, et al. “Give Yourself a Hand: The Role of Gesture and Working Memory in Preschoolers' Numerical Knowledge.” Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, Academic Press, 10 Apr. 2021, https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S0022096521000631?token=1264855427B4E78DDD422DA0CF54B018EFF67F75534A1A52B34ADB232B4817974C861956AEC72AD5487D475F8E14E161&originRegion=us-east-1&originCreation=20221014010507.