Gestural Communication Research Articles

“What is your secret sauce to win?” – gender performance at entrepreneurial pitching

PurposeThis study aims to explore gender performance in entrepreneurial pitching. Understanding pitching as a social practice, the authors argue that pitch content and body gestures contain gender-based norms and practices. The authors focus on early-stage ventures and the hegemonic masculinities and femininities that are performed in entrepreneurial pitches. The main research question is as follows: How is gender performed in entrepreneurial pitching?Design/methodology/approachThe authors carried out the study with the post-structuralist feminist approach. The authors collected and analyzed nine online pitches with the reflexive thematic method to depict hegemonic masculinities and femininities performed at the pitch.FindingsThe authors found that heroic and breadwinner masculinities are dominant in pitching. Both male and female founders perform hegemonic masculinities. Entrepreneurs are expected to be assertive but empathetic people. Finally, there are connections between what entrepreneurs do and what investors ask, indicating the iteration of gender performance and expectations.Research limitations/implicationsWhile the online setting helps the authors to collect data during the pandemic, it limits the observation of the place, space and interactions between the judges/investors and the entrepreneurs. As a result, the linguistic and gesture communication of the investors in the pitch was not discussed in full-length in this paper. Also, as the authors observed, people would come to the pitch knowing what they should perform and how they should interact. Therefore, the preparation of the pitch as a study context could provide rich details on how gender norms and stereotypes influence people's interactions and their entrepreneurial identity. Lastly, the study has a methodological limitation. The authors did not include aspects of space in the analysis. It is mainly due to the variety of settings that the pitching sessions that the data set had.Practical implicationsFor social practices and policies, the results indicate barriers to finance for women entrepreneurs. Women entrepreneurs are rewarded when they perform entrepreneurial hegemonic masculinities with a touch of emphasized femininities. Eventually, if women entrepreneurs do not perform correctly as investors expect them to, they will face barriers to acquiring finance. It is important to acknowledge how certain gendered biases might be (re)constructed and (re)produced through entrepreneurial activities, in which pitching is one of them.Social implicationsPractitioners could utilize research findings to understand how gender stereotypes exist not only on the pitch stage but also before and after the pitch, such as the choice of business idea and pitch training. In other words, it is necessary to create a more enabling environment for women entrepreneurs, such as customizing the accelerator program so that all business ideas receive relevant support from experts. On a macro level, the study has shown that seemingly gender-equal societies do not practically translate into higher participation of women in entrepreneurship.Originality/valueFor theoretical contributions, the study enhances the discussion that entrepreneurship is gendered; women and men entrepreneurs need to perform certain hegemonic traits to be legitimated as founders. The authors also address various pitching practices that shape pitch performance by including both textual and semiotic data in the study. This study provides social implications on the awareness of gendered norms and the design of entrepreneurial pitching.

Autism-Related Differences in Cortical Activation When Observing, Producing, and Imitating Communicative Gestures: An fNIRS Study.

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have difficulties in gestural communication during social interactions. However, the neural mechanisms involved in naturalistic gestural communication remain poorly understood. In this study, cortical activation patterns associated with gestural communication were examined in thirty-two children with and without ASD (mean age: 11.0 years, SE: 0.6 years). Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was used to record cortical activation while children produced, observed, or imitated communicative gestures. Children with ASD demonstrated more spatial and temporal errors when performing and imitating communicative gestures. Although both typically developing (TD) children and children with ASD showed left-lateralized cortical activation during gesture production, children with ASD showed hyperactivation in the middle/inferior frontal gyrus (MIFG) during observation and imitation, and hypoactivation in the middle/superior temporal gyrus (MSTG) during gesture production compared to their TD peers. More importantly, children with ASD exhibited greater MSTG activation during imitation than during gesture production, suggesting that imitation could be an effective intervention strategy to engage cortical regions crucial for processing and producing gestures. Our study provides valuable insights into the neural mechanisms underlying gestural communication difficulties in ASD, while also identifying potential neurobiomarkers that could serve as objective measures for evaluating intervention effectiveness in children with ASD.

A Genealogy of Gestures: On the Nature and Emergence of Forms of Gestural Communication within Shared Routines

Communicative development can be better understood by examining the diversity of gestures and how various forms of gestures are interlinked in their developmental origins – their genealogy. To draw attention to the differences and interrelations among forms of gestures, we group gestures into three families based on their developmental origins: (1) action-based gestures that develop from infants’ spontaneous actions that others respond to; (2) conventional gestures; and (3) iconic gestures. Although these diverse gestures are acquired through somewhat different developmental pathways, we argue that they develop in the context of shared experiences within social routines. What differs is the relative role of the caregiver and child in initiating the routine. In viewing communicative development in this way, we show the importance of basing our investigations on an adequate conception of meaning in order to recognize the similarity in the underlying processes involved in early communicative development.

A high-performance neuroprosthesis for speech decoding and avatar control.

Speech neuroprostheses have the potential to restore communication to people living with paralysis, but naturalistic speed and expressivity are elusive1. Here we use high-density surface recordings of the speech cortex in a clinical-trial participant with severe limb and vocal paralysis to achieve high-performance real-time decoding across three complementary speech-related output modalities: text, speech audio and facial-avatar animation. We trained and evaluated deep-learning models using neural data collected as the participant attempted to silently speak sentences. For text, we demonstrate accurate and rapid large-vocabulary decoding with a median rate of 78 words per minute and median word error rate of 25%. For speech audio, we demonstrate intelligible and rapid speech synthesis andpersonalizationto the participant's pre-injury voice. For facial-avatar animation, we demonstrate the control of virtual orofacial movements for speech and non-speech communicative gestures. The decoders reached high performance with less than two weeks of training. Our findings introduce a multimodal speech-neuroprosthetic approach that has substantial promise to restore full, embodied communication to people living with severe paralysis.

Early triadic interactions in the first year of life: a systematic review on object-mediated shared encounters.

Infants' early interactions with adults and everyday objects are key to socio-communicative development, but their emergence and development are still under debate. Aiming at describing the diversity of theoretical and methodological approaches on triadicity during the first year of life, we conducted a systematic and qualitative review of recent literature. Following PRISMA 2020 guidelines, we explored the scientific production of recent decades on triadic interactions up to 12 months of age. We initially screened 1943 items from which we obtained a final sample of 51 publications. Studies are usually conducted in laboratory settings, while ecological research is becoming increasingly common, especially in home settings. According to a thematic analysis of the data, we discussed the different perspectives on the origin and conceptualization of triadic interactions, and how they contribute to structuring and facilitating other developmental phenomena, such as the children's communicative gestures and uses of objects. Prior to the origin of intentional communication, adults facilitate early forms of triadicity based on fostering opportunities for infants' communication and engagement with both adults and materiality. However, there is a need for further research that explore the potential of early triadic interactions for parenting and early childhood education practises.

ManyDogs 1: A Multi-Lab Replication Study of Dogs’ Pointing Comprehension

To promote collaboration across canine science, address replicability issues, and advance open science practices within animal cognition, we have launched the ManyDogs consortium, modeled on similar ManyX projects in other fields. We aimed to create a collaborative network that (a) uses large, diverse samples to investigate and replicate findings, (b) promotes open science practices of pre-registering hypotheses, methods, and analysis plans, (c) investigates the influence of differences across populations and breeds, and (d) examines how different research methods and testing environments influence the robustness of results. Our first study combines a phenomenon that appears to be highly reliable—dogs’ ability to follow human pointing—with a question that remains controversial: do dogs interpret pointing as a social communicative gesture or as a simple associative cue? We collected data (N = 455) from 20 research sites on two conditions of a 2-alternative object choice task: (1) Ostensive (pointing to a baited cup after making eye-contact and saying the dog’s name); (2) Non-ostensive (pointing without eye-contact, after a throat-clearing auditory control cue). Comparing performance between conditions, while both were significantly above chance, there was no significant difference in dogs’ responses. This result was consistent across sites. Further, we found that dogs followed contralateral, momentary pointing at lower rates than has been reported in prior research, suggesting that there are limits to the robustness of point-following behavior: not all pointing styles are equally likely to elicit a response. Together, these findings underscore the important role of procedural details in study design and the broader need for replication studies in canine science.

Communicative and linguistic factors influencing language development at 30 months of age in preterm and full-term children: a longitudinal study using the CDI.

Previous studies showed that very preterm children have a delay in communicative (gestures) and linguistic development as compared to full-term children. Earlier use of gestures, as well as of word comprehension and production, have been found to be predictive of subsequent word production and/or language delay in both very preterm and full-term children. Not many studies on communicative antecedents of language, however, have been carried out with low-risk preterm children in comparison to full-term children. In the present study a sample (N = 142) of low-risk preterm children has been followed using the Galician version of the Communicative Development Inventories (CDI) at the ages of 10, 22, and 30 months of age and their results were compared to the results from a sample (N = 49) of full-term children at the same ages. The determinants of language measures (vocabulary and grammar) at 30 months of age have been studied through linear regression analyses. ANOVA results indicate that there were no significant differences between the groups in any of the measures obtained with the CDI at any time, nor were there any differences in lexical or grammatical developmental trajectories between both groups (repeated measures ANOVA). Linear regression analyses showed that the predictors of language at 30 months of age are somewhat different for the full-term than for the preterm group. While the use of first communicative gestures at 10 months is a predictor of word production at 30 months of age for the full-term group, participation in games and routines seems to play a significant predictive role for preterm children. Word production at 22 months is the factor with a major incidence on word production at the age of 30 months for both groups. Previous specific measures of grammatical development have a clear determinant role in grammar measures at 30 months of age for the full-term children, while in the case of preterm children previous lexical development seems to be more relevant.

Теоретичний аналіз проблеми жестової стимуляції в роботі з пацієнтами з постінсультною афазією

The article contains the analyses of theoretical aspects of gesture usage as a therapeutic tool in the speech therapy rehabilitation of patients with aphasia. The paper characterizes studies that indicate a close relation between verbal and non-verbal communication. There are defined main types of gestures and their classification, as well as the communicative function of gesticulation for people with preserved speech and the ones with aphasia. There is a description of gesture functioning peculiarities for people with aphasia and their impact on the process of speech therapy rehabilitation. There were analyzed results of previously conducted studies on the effectiveness of gestural stimulation as a method of restoring communication in patients with aphasia. It allowed to state following. Most studies indicate that the use of gestures in impaired communication contributes to the restoration of verbal speech. As well as improves the search for needed vocabulary (both nouns and verbs), helps the patient to remember words better, and in the case of unintelligible speech to convey and recognize the content of the message. It also provides an opportunity for the patient to maintain contact with the surrounding people. Difficulties identified while the research are the use of gestural stimulation in remedial learning, namely motor disorders, particularly limb apraxia, which is common in stroke patients. The article contains the description of tests generally accepted in the neurological clinic, with the help of which it is possible to assess the preservation of complex forms of praxis in patients with organic lesions of the central nervous system. Furthermore, there is the analysis of studies that deny the positive influence of gestures on communication in people with aphasia, or determine the effectiveness of their use only in working with patients with a mild degree of aphasia.

Концепция глобального упадка насилия Стивена Пинкера и реакция научного сообщества

Two widely discussed books on violence by Steven Pinker offer a grand metanarrative about the movement of humanity towards reason, progress, and humanism. The article briefly generalizes the main author’s methodological predispositions. The article also deals with the conceptual analysis of the theory. The scholar’s theory is based on several key ideas: the state, gentle commerce, the taming of manners, and the Enlightenment. The main point is that society, passing successively through such stages-ideas, moves in the direction of greater progress and limitation of violence. As for the criticisms, we illustrate the limitations of the method chosen and the inadequacy of its objectives. First, the author uses the criminological method of counting the number of murders per hundred thousand in a population, which can only characterize one segment of violence. Secondly, the measured violence does not always correlate with other violent crimes. We also point out objective difficulties in working with the available statistics. In particular, we are confronted with fragmented data and incomparable methodology of data collection from predecessors. In addition, we reveal many mistakes, inaccuracies, and in many cases even deliberate discrepancies within representative data. Steven Pinker often resorts to overly sweeping generalizations and comparisons of difficult-to-compare cases. Many scholars have also noted the author’s use of unprofessional literature. In terms of conceptual ideas, critics note the author’s ignorance of contemporary debates and disregard for differences in the works of those classics used in the work. We should also note the rather unfriendly tone of the discussion on the part of all the participants, since the dispute is about big ideas, which often leads to direct insults and labeling. In conclusion, we praise the communicative gesture of challenging the scientific community, but it seems clear that the main goal to give proof towards violence decline is inconclusive.

Evolution of human language: duetting as part of prosociality and cognition

The evolution of human language is a topic that has received undiminished attention. Numerous hypotheses for the origin of human language have been proposed, including gestural communication found specifically among apes. This study advances the hypothesis that human evolution, including human language development, is three-pronged: prosocial, cognitive, and collaborative. Duetting and turn-taking in primates are used as pivotal examples of how bonding leads to joint action and collaboration. It points out that such vocal behavior itself may be a crucial precursor of language evolution in the sense that it is explicitly focused on a conspecific. Some current hypotheses have acknowledged duetting as an important perceptual and behavioral example of synchronicity. Some forms of synchronized behavior, as found in duetting, synchronized dance, or even shared song, were perhaps crucial evolutionary steps preceding the evolution of human language. Duetting signifies more than that, however, because it is an observable and significant cognitive investment that signals attention toward a partner. This study also advances the hypothesis that affect and cognition would have needed to precede any form of duetting or signs of affiliation such as grooming. Hence, this study, asking what duetting in primates signifies in evolutionary terms, takes a multidisciplinary and multimodal approach to suggest important affective and cognitive steps in the evolution of human language and speech, the chief of which is prosociality. Prosociality, as an attitude and awareness of another, be this as a friend or partner for whom one can do favors or whom one can help, is a model for collaboration and cooperation, and also increased cognition.

Swarm Metaverse for Multi-Level Autonomy Using Digital Twins.

Robot swarms are becoming popular in domains that require spatial coordination. Effective human control over swarm members is pivotal for ensuring swarm behaviours align with the dynamic needs of the system. Several techniques have been proposed for scalable human-swarm interaction. However, these techniques were mostly developed in simple simulation environments without guidance on how to scale them up to the real world. This paper addresses this research gap by proposing a metaverse for scalable control of robot swarms and an adaptive framework for different levels of autonomy. In the metaverse, the physical/real world of a swarm symbiotically blends with a virtual world formed from digital twins representing each swarm member and logical control agents. The proposed metaverse drastically decreases swarm control complexity due to human reliance on only a few virtual agents, with each agent dynamically actuating on a sub-swarm. The utility of the metaverse is demonstrated by a case study where humans controlled a swarm of uncrewed ground vehicles (UGVs) using gestural communication, and via a single virtual uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV). The results show that humans could successfully control the swarm under two different levels of autonomy, while task performance increases as autonomy increases.

Speech-language pathologists’ perceptions of augmentative and alternative communication in Thailand

Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems are not well-known and broadly used in Thailand. To begin introducing AAC systems and interventions to children with complex communication needs in Thailand, understanding speech-language pathologists’ (SLPs) perceptions toward various AAC systems is an important first step. This study assessed SLPs’ perceptions of three AAC modalities: gestural communication, communication boards, and iPad 1 -based speech-output technologies. A total of 78 SLPs watched three video vignettes of a child using each mode and rated their impressions of intelligibility, ease of learnability and use, effectiveness, and preference. Then they were asked to rate factors on visual analog scales that provided additional insights into their rationales and their preferences for AAC modalities for nonverbal clients and for themselves if they were nonverbal. The results indicated that most of the SLPs rated iPad-based speech-output technologies as being the more intelligible, effective, and preferred mode of communication. Gestural communication was rated as the easiest mode to learn and use for a child with complex communication needs. Despite infrequent use of iPad-based speech-output technologies in Thailand, SLPs’ ratings indicated high social acceptance of this modality for promoting communication abilities of children with complex communication needs. Results also revealed some biases and lack of knowledge about AAC systems in Thailand.

Exploring the Emotional Functions of Co-Speech Hand Gesturein Language and Communication.

Research over the past four decades has built a convincing case that co-speech hand gestures play a powerful role in human cognition . However, this recent focus on the cognitive function of gesturehas, to a large extent, overlooked its emotional role-a role that was once central to research on bodily expression. In the present review, we first give a brief summary of the wealth of research demonstrating the cognitive function of co-speech gestures in language acquisition, learning, and thinking. Building on this foundation, we revisit the emotional function of gesture across a wide range of communicative contexts, from clinical to artistic to educational, and spanning diverse fields, from cognitive neuroscience to linguistics to affective science. Bridging the cognitive and emotional functions of gesture highlights promising avenues of research that have varied practical and theoretical implications for human-machine interactions, therapeutic interventions, language evolution, embodied cognition, and more.

Learning to generate pointing gestures in situated embodied conversational agents.

One of the main goals of robotics and intelligent agent research is to enable them to communicate with humans in physically situated settings. Human communication consists of both verbal and non-verbal modes. Recent studies in enabling communication for intelligent agents have focused on verbal modes, i.e., language and speech. However, in a situated setting the non-verbal mode is crucial for an agent to adapt flexible communication strategies. In this work, we focus on learning to generate non-verbal communicative expressions in situated embodied interactive agents. Specifically, we show that an agent can learn pointing gestures in a physically simulated environment through a combination of imitation and reinforcement learning that achieves high motion naturalness and high referential accuracy. We compared our proposed system against several baselines in both subjective and objective evaluations. The subjective evaluation is done in a virtual reality setting where an embodied referential game is played between the user and the agent in a shared 3D space, a setup that fully assesses the communicative capabilities of the generated gestures. The evaluations show that our model achieves a higher level of referential accuracy and motion naturalness compared to a state-of-the-art supervised learning motion synthesis model, showing the promise of our proposed system that combines imitation and reinforcement learning for generating communicative gestures. Additionally, our system is robust in a physically-simulated environment thus has the potential of being applied to robots.

GesturalOrigins: A bottom-up framework for establishing systematic gesture data across ape species

Current methodologies present significant hurdles to understanding patterns in the gestural communication of individuals, populations, and species. To address this issue, we present a bottom-up data collection framework for the study of gesture: GesturalOrigins. By “bottom-up”, we mean that we minimise a priori structural choices, allowing researchers to define larger concepts (such as ‘gesture types’, ‘response latencies’, or ‘gesture sequences’) flexibly once coding is complete. Data can easily be re-organised to provide replication of, and comparison with, a wide range of datasets in published and planned analyses. We present packages, templates, and instructions for the complete data collection and coding process. We illustrate the flexibility that our methodological tool offers with worked examples of (great ape) gestural communication, demonstrating differences in the duration of action phases across distinct gesture action types and showing how species variation in the latency to respond to gestural requests may be revealed or masked by methodological choices. While GesturalOrigins is built from an ape-centred perspective, the basic framework can be adapted across a range of species and potentially to other communication systems. By making our gesture coding methods transparent and open access, we hope to enable a more direct comparison of findings across research groups, improve collaborations, and advance the field to tackle some of the long-standing questions in comparative gesture research.

Symbolic and deictic gestures as a tool to promote parent-child communication in the context of hearing loss: A systematic review.

Language and communication outcomes in children with congenital sensorineural hearing loss (cSNHL) are highly variable, and some of this variance can be attributed to the quantity and quality of language input. In this paper, we build from the evidence that human language is inherently multimodal and positive scaffolding of children's linguistic, cognitive, and social-relational development can be supported by Parent Centered Early Interventions (PCEI), to suggest that the use of gestures in these interventions could be a beneficial approach, yet scarcely explored. This systematic review aimed to examine the literature on PCEI focused on gestures (symbolic and deictic) used to enhance the caregiver-child relationship and infant's language development, in both typically and atypically developing populations. The systematic review was conducted following the PRISMA guidelines for systematic reviews and meta-analyses. From 246 identified studies, 8 met PICO inclusion criteria and were eligible for inclusion. Two reviewers screened papers before completing data extraction and risk of bias assessment using the RoB2 Cochrane scale. Included studies measured the effect of implementing symbolic or deictic gestures in daily communication on the relational aspects of mother/parent-child interaction or on language skills in infants. The studies indicate that gesture-oriented PCEI may benefit deprived populations such as atypically developing children, children from low-income families, and children who, for individual reasons, lag behind their peers in communication. Although gesture-oriented PCEI appear to be beneficial in the early intervention for atypically developing populations, this approach has been so far scarcely explored directly in the context of hearing loss. Yet, symbolic gestures being a natural part of early vocabulary acquisition that emerges spontaneously regardless of hearing status, this approach could represent a promising line of intervention in infants with cSNHL, especially those with a worse head start.

Chimpanzees communicate to coordinate a cultural practice.

Human culture thrives by virtue of communication, yet whether communication plays an influential role in the cultural lives of other animals remains understudied. Here, we investigated whether chimpanzees use communication to engage in a cultural practice by analysing grooming handclasp (GHC) interactions-a socio-cultural behaviour requiring interindividual coordination for successful execution. Previous accounts attributed GHC initiations to behavioural shaping, whereby the initiator physically moulds the partner's arm into the desired GHC posture. Using frame-by-frame analysis and matched-control methodology, we find that chimpanzees do not only shape their partner's posture (22%), but also use gestural communication to initiate GHC (44%), which requires an active and synchronized response from the partner. Moreover, in a third (34%) of the GHC initiations, the requisite coordination was achieved by seemingly effortless synchrony. Lastly, using a longitudinal approach, we find that for GHC initiations, communication occurs more frequently than shaping in experienced dyads and less in mother-offspring dyads. These findings are consistent with ontogenetic ritualization, thereby reflecting first documentation of chimpanzees communicating to coordinate a cultural practice. We conclude that chimpanzees show interactional flexibility in the socio-cultural domain, opening the possibility that the interplay between communication and culture is rooted in our deep evolutionary history.

Towards a great ape dictionary: Inexperienced humans understand common nonhuman ape gestures.

In the comparative study of human and nonhuman communication, ape gesturing provided the first demonstrations of flexible, intentional communication outside human language. Rich repertoires of these gestures have been described in all ape species, bar one: us. Given that the majority of great ape gestural signals are shared, and their form appears biologically inherited, this creates a conundrum: Where did the ape gestures go in human communication? Here, we test human recognition and understanding of 10 of the most frequently used ape gestures. We crowdsourced data from 5,656 participants through an online game, which required them to select the meaning of chimpanzee and bonobo gestures in 20 videos. We show that humans may retain an understanding of ape gestural communication (either directly inherited or part of more general cognition), across gesture types and gesture meanings, with information on communicative context providing only a marginal improvement in success. By assessing comprehension, rather than production, we accessed part of the great ape gestural repertoire for the first time in adult humans. Cognitive access to an ancestral system of gesture appears to have been retained after our divergence from other apes, drawing deep evolutionary continuity between their communication and our own.

Phonetic transcription of spontaneous children's speech with the aid of software: a systematic review

The aim of the study was to identify, synthesize and classify the software currently available that can help in the task of phonetic transcription of the spontaneous speech of pre-school children to evaluate the development of children's language. A systematic review was performed for articles published, for the 10-year period (June 2010 to June 2020), without restrictions as to location and language, using the Cochrane, Pubmed and Web of Science databases. The terms used in the search strategies were "phonological", "phonetic", "transcription", "computer" and "software". The studies were selected by two independent reviewers using pre-defined search strategies. In the initial search, after the exclusion of duplicates, 534 articles were found. By reading their titles and abstracts, 46 articles related to the theme were left, which were then read in full. After reading, 24 articles were included in the study. The results revealed a total of seven software available for the phonetic transcription of spontaneous speech from preschoolers used for different analyses: LENA and Timestamper (for babbling and pre-linguistic vocalizations), ELAN (for gestural communication, extralinguistic elements and the situational context), Phon (for phonetic and phonological analyses), CLAN and SALT (for morphosyntactic, grammatical and semantic aspects) and Praat (for acoustic measurements). Through this systematic review, it can be concluded that there are advantages to using software for phonetic transcription, sample storage, and child language analysis, especially concerning standardization and reliability for spontaneous speech samples. Phonetic transcription still relies on the ability and subjectivity of a human transcriber. The tools found in the software provide support to facilitate using phonetic symbols, audio segmentation and pairing to writing, and analysis of speech data.

Cerebroplacental ratio as an indicator of placental functioning and its relationship with early communicative gestures acquisition

BackgroundGestures are linked to developmental and neurological development. Cerebroplacental ratio (CPR) has proven to be a good predictor of neurological damage within the growth-restricted fetuses’ population. However, its usefulness in the general population has not been studied for this purpose. The aim of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of CPR as a predictor of gesture acquisition. MethodA prospective cohort of 35 singleton pregnancies with normally grown fetuses was recruited. Doppler indices for the umbilical artery (UA), middle cerebral artery (MCA) and cerebroplacental ratio (CPR) at 36–40 weeks of gestation were recorded. MacArthur-Bates I Communication Skills Development Questionnaires (SCDI) at 12 (±1) months of age were applied. Based on their gesture performance, they were divided into Normal Scores (NS), and Low Scores (LS). ResultsThe independent samples t-test analysis revealed a significant difference between the NS group and LS in terms of CPRz scores (t=2.706, p=.011). CPR z-scores values showed a positive correlation with early gesture centiles (R2=0.145, p=.029) and late gesture centiles (R2=0.178, p=.014). ConclusionCPR within the last weeks of pregnancy could be of potential utility to predict gesture acquisition.