Gesture’s role in reflecting and fostering conceptual change

In this chapter, we discuss how gestures-hand movements that accompany speech and provide information in a representational format-contribute to conceptual change. We first describe how a child’s own gestures can indicate when that child will undergo a shift in conceptual understanding. Next, we show that gestures can play a role in causally promoting conceptual change. We end by outlining some of the mechanisms through which gesture may have its effects, and argue that a gesture’s influence likely resides in the unique combination of its intrinsic, defining features.