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Background This investigation details procedures used to teach enhanced natural gestures ( ENGs) and illustrates its use with three students with Angelman syndrome ( AS). Materials and Methods Themes were extracted, using a process of content analysis, to organize individuals' feedback pertaining to previous versions of the instructional programme. A 'B' case study design was then employed to follow administration of the modified programme with three students in Madrid, Spain. Programme impact was examined relative to changes in each student's uses of ENGs spontaneously and in response to non-specific verbal prompts, along with team members' responses to a questionnaire designed to evaluate programme efficacy. Results Two of the three students demonstrated particularly rapid and spontaneous uses of their ENGs. Both quantitative and qualitative feedback from teams supported programme efficacy for all three students. Conclusions The approach appears viable for individuals with AS and has implications for individuals presenting other diagnoses as well. Additional educational/clinical and research implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyzed the effect of infant-directed speech (IDS) on multimodal communicative production of children at the beginning of the second year of life in two different languages: Spanish and Basque. Twelve Spanish and twelve Basque children aged between 12 and 15 months observed two versions of an audiovisual story: one version was narrated with IDS and the other with adult-directed speech (ADS). We analyzed the use of gaze and the communicative behaviors produced by children. The time spent looking at the story increases in the IDS condition regardless of the language of the narration. Children produced more multimodal communicative behaviors while watching the IDS version both in Spanish and in Basque. These results suggest that IDS increases attention and social engagement promoting joint attention episodes.

The temporal-focus hypothesis claims that whether people conceptualize the past or the future as in front of them depends on their cultural attitudes toward time; such conceptualizations can be independent from the space-time metaphors expressed through language. In this paper, we study how Chinese people conceptualize time on the sagittal axis to find out the respective influences of language and culture on mental space-time mappings. An examination of Mandarin speakers' co-speech gestures shows that some Chinese spontaneously perform past-in-front/future-at-back (besides future-in-front/past-at-back) gestures, especially when gestures are accompanying past-in-front/future-at-back space-time metaphors (Exp. 1). Using a temporal performance task, the study confirms that Chinese can conceptualize the future as behind and the past as in front of them, and that such space-time mappings are affected by the different expressions of Mandarin space-time metaphors (Exp. 2). Additionally, a survey on cultural attitudes toward time shows that Chinese tend to focus slightly more on the future than on the past (Exp. 3). Within the Chinese sample, we did not find evidence for the effect of participants' cultural temporal attitudes on space-time mappings, but a cross-cultural comparison of space-time mappings between Chinese, Moroccans, and Spaniards provides strong support for the temporal-focus hypothesis. Furthermore, the results of Exp. 2 are replicated even after controlling for factors such as cultural temporal attitudes and age (Exp. 3), which implies that linguistic sagittal temporal metaphors can indeed influence Mandarin speakers' space-time mappings. The findings not only contribute to a better understanding of Chinese people's sagittal temporal orientation, but also have additional implications for theories on the mental space-time mappings and the relationship between language and thought., (© 2019 The Authors. Cognitive Science published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Cognitive Science Society (CSS).)

Unlabelled: The objective of this study was to test whether suicide attempters and suicide gesturers can be clinically differentiated. A total of 150 subjects who had attempted suicide at least once, had made a suicide gesture, had suicidal ideation, and/or had engaged in non-suicidal self-injury were recruited from the inpatient service of the Jiménez Díaz Foundation (Madrid, Spain). A multinomial regression analysis was conducted. Histrionic and antisocial personality disorders were risk factors specific to suicide gestures. Narcissistic personality disorder was specifically associated with suicide attempts. Borderline personality disorder was associated with both suicide gestures and attempts. A high level of impulsiveness was a risk factor specific to suicide attempts., Conclusion: Suicide attempters and suicide gesturers are two distinct, although partially overlapping, populations.

Background: Our main purpose was to compare the lexical development of Spanish children with Down syndrome (DS) and children with typical development (TD) to investigate the relationship between cognitive and vocabulary development in comprehension and oral and gestural production., Method: Participants were 186 children with DS and 186 children with TD, with a mental age (MA) of 8-29 months and matched on gender and MA. Information about vocabulary was obtained using a new Spanish adaptation of the MacArthur-Bates CDI for children with DS., Results: No significant differences in oral production were found. Lexical comprehension and gestural production of children with DS were superior. Similar to children with TD, gestural production in children with DS decreased as oral production increased., Conclusion: Our study provides evidence to support that lexical comprehension and gesture production are strengths in children with DS. With respect to oral production, our results do not support a specific dissociation between cognitive and lexical development.

Background: It is generally assumed that children with Down syndrome (DS) present a deficit in lexical production relative to their cognitive abilities. However, the literature on this topic has recently shown several contradictory results. In addition, most studies only consider vocabulary production in its vocal modality. However it is also necessary to take into account gesture production, since this is a strength in children with DS. Our main purpose in this study, therefore, was to investigate the relationship between cognitive development and vocabulary size in both its vocal and gestural modalities in a broad sample of Spanish children with DS., Method: Participants in the study were 66 children with DS and 66 children with typical development (TD), with a mental age (MA) of 14-28 months (divided into five groups with a MA of 14-16, 17-19, 20-22, 23-25 and 26-28 months). Children were matched on the basis of their gender and MA. Productive vocabularies were collected using an adaptation of the MacArthur-Bates CDI for children with DS., Results: In vocal modality, the number of words produced by children with DS and children with TD is similar. As in previous studies, our data confirmed that gestural communication is superior in children with DS. However, when words and gestures are combined, the performance of both groups of children is practically equal., Conclusion: Our results do not support a specific dissociation between cognitive and lexical development in children with DS.