Hand gestures are clearly not random movements; they are movements that often accompany the
spoken modality and are communicative devices. Gestures and spoken output often exhibit
semantic, pragmatic and temporal synchrony (McNeill, 1985; Kelly 2010). However, the role of
gestures during language production has not been well understood and gestures are often assigned
a compensatory role. This webinar will aim to discuss the types and the functions of hand gestures.

It will discuss the stages of development of gestures in children, and the nature of the gesture-
spoken language relationship in children and adults with or without communication impairments.