How gesture promotes learning throughout childhood.

The gestures children use when they talk often reveal knowledge that they do not express in speech. Gesture is particularly likely to reveal these unspoken thoughts when children are on the verge of learning a new task. It thus reflects knowledge in child learners. But gesture can also play a role in changing the child's knowledge, indirectly through its effects on the child's communicative environment and directly through its effects on the child's cognitive state. Because gesture reflects thought and is an early marker of change, it may be possible to use it diagnostically. Gesture (or its lack) may be the first sign of future developmental difficulty. And because gesture can change thought, it may prove to be useful in the home, the classroom, and the clinic as a way to alter the pace, and perhaps the course, of learning and development.