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Language rhythms in baby hand movements

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Hearing babies born to deaf parents babble silently with their hands.

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Figure 1: Hand-movement frequencies calculated for the rhythmic hand activity of sign-exposed (full line) and speech-exposed (dashed line) babies across all ages; for each group, 400 movement segments (200 per group) were randomly selected.
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Author notes

  1. Laura Ann Petitto

    Present address: Departments of Psychological & Brain Sciences and Education, Dartmouth College, 302 Silsby Hall, Hanover, New Hampshire, 03755, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, McGill University, Montréal, H3A-1B1, Québec, Canada

    Laura Ann Petitto, Siobhan Holowka & David Ostry

  2. Department of Kinesiology and Health Sciences, York University, Toronto, M3J-1P3, Ontario, Canada

    Lauren E. Sergio

  3. Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, 06511-6695, Connecticut, USA

    David Ostry

Authors
  1. Laura Ann Petitto
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  2. Siobhan Holowka
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  3. Lauren E. Sergio
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  4. David Ostry
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Correspondence to Laura Ann Petitto.

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Petitto, L., Holowka, S., Sergio, L. et al. Language rhythms in baby hand movements. Nature 413, 35–36 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35092613

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