Production and comprehension of gesture emerge early and are key to subsequent language development in typical development. Compared to typically developing (TD) children, children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) exhibit difficulties and/or differences in gesture production. However, we do not yet know if gesture production either shows similar patterns to gesture comprehension across different ages and learners, or alternatively, lags behind gesture comprehension, thus mimicking a pattern akin to speech comprehension and production. In this study, we focus on the gestures produced and comprehended by a group of young TD children and children with ASD—comparable in language ability—with the goal to identify whether gesture production and comprehension follow similar patterns between ages and between learners. We elicited production of gesture in a semi-structured parent–child play and comprehension of gesture in a structured experimenter-child play across two studies. We tested whether young TD children (ages 2–4) follow a similar trajectory in their production and comprehension of gesture (Study 1) across ages, and if so, whether this alignment remains similar for verbal children with ASD (M_age = 5 years), comparable to TD children in language ability (Study 2). Our results provided evidence for similarities between gesture production and comprehension across ages and across learners, suggesting that comprehension and production of gesture form a largely integrated system of communication.

手势的产生和理解较早出现，是典型发展中随后语言发展的关键。与正常发育的 (TD) 儿童相比，患有自闭症谱系障碍 (ASD) 的儿童在手势产生方面表现出困难和/或差异。然而，我们还不知道手势产生是否在不同年龄和学习者中显示出与手势理解相似的模式，或者落后于手势理解，从而模仿类似于语音理解和产生的模式。在这项研究中，我们关注一组幼儿 TD 儿童和 ASD 儿童产生和理解的手势（语言能力相当），目的是确定手势产生和理解是否在年龄和学习者之间遵循相似的模式。我们在两项研究中引发了半结构化亲子游戏中手势的产生和结构化实验者-儿童游戏中手势的理解。我们测试了年幼的 TD 儿童（2-4 岁）在不同年龄段的手势产生和理解（研究 1）是否遵循相似的轨迹，如果是，这种一致性对于患有 ASD 的言语儿童是否仍然相似（M_年龄 = 5 岁），在语言能力上与 TD 儿童相当（研究 2）。我们的研究结果为跨年龄和跨学习者的手势产生和理解之间的相似性提供了证据，表明手势的理解和产生形成了一个很大程度上集成的交流系统。