What’s in a gesture? kids need to learn

Previewing the Article

Nonverbal reading - does it sound impossible? Actually, you do it all the time. You “read” (receive messages from) the gestures, facial expressions, posture and tone of voice of people you’re talking to.

“That kind of reading is instinctive,” you may say. “Everyone knows how to read smile, a hug or an enthusiastic handshake”. Not so. Some children must be taught to “read” nonverbal communication. This article explains how the learning problem is being diagnosed and treated.

Before You Read

Before you read the article, discuss these questions.

1. What are the differences between gestures, facial expressions and posture? What are some examples of nonverbal messages communicated in each of these ways?

2. Of course, some nonverbal signals vary from one culture to another. What are some gestures you know that have a specific meaning in your native country? Do you think people from other countries understand them?

As You Read

As you read, look for reasons why misreading nonverbal messages creates problems.

What’s in a gesture? kids need to learn

by Daniel Goleman

New York Times Service

Unpopularity, poor grades and a host of other problems that afflict children may derive from an inability to read nonverbal messages of teachers and peers, new findings show.

The results are based on a test that measure nonverbal skills: reading the emotions that are revealed in tone of voice, for instance, and sensing how close to stand while talking to someone. It is the first such test designed specifically for use with children.

The test assesses ability to read nonverbal messages in several ways. For instance, a child watches 40 slides of children and adults, rating their expressions as happy, sad, angry and so on. The same is done with slides showing various postures and gestures, and with audiotapes of various tones of voice.

The child’s ability to sense nonverbal messages is also measured more actively.

5 In one test, he or she is videotaped while making an expression to communicate the emotion for a hypothetical situation, like receiving a long-wanted birthday present. In other tests, the child is told to use only hands and arms to communicate a particular emotion or to read a sentence in ways that express a variety of emotions.

Studies of more than 1,000 children aged 9 to 11 showed that those who scored lowest on the test tended to be among the least popular in their class. They also tended to do less well academically, even though their intelligence was just as high on average.

The studies found that up to 10 percent of all children may have problems with nonverbal communication severe enough to impair their social or academic functioning. When trying to make friends, they are typically unable to approach other children without putting them off, and they often unwillingly respond to teachers in ways they get them in trouble.

The test will allow screening of children to identify such deficiencies. Psychologists believe that helping the children improve those skills may save them from serious setbacks in later life.

Since most emotional messages between people are communicated nonverbally - by a gesture or tone of voice, say - the inability to read or send such messages adeptly is a major social handicap, said Stephen Nowicki, a psychologist at Emory University in Atlanta, who developed the scale.

10 “Because they are unaware of the messages they are sending, or misinterpret how other children are feeling”, he said, “unpopular children may nor even realize that they are initiating many of the negative reactions they receive from their peers”.

Unpopular children may inadvertently communicate over-eagerness that their peers misinterpret as aggression, according to a study published by Dr. Nowicki and Carolyn Oxenford this year in The Journal of Genetic Psychology.

Among the problems common in children lacking nonverbal skills, Dr. Nowicki said, is a continual sense of frustration that can lead to depression or apathy.

“They get rebuffed and know why”, Dr. Nowicki said. “In essence, they just don’t understand what’s going on. They may think they’re acting happy but actually appear to others too excited or even angry. They are mystified when other kids are angry in return”.

Such children develop a sense that they have little or no control over how people treat them, Dr. Nowicki found. By extension, they feel they lack control over their fate in general. Other research has shown that their attitude leads to a defeatism that undermines children emotionally.

15 “They look emotionally disturbed, anxious, depressed, angry”, said dr. Nowicki. “But something else is going on. The anger and such don’t come from family or other typical sources of emotional disturbance in children. It’s an effect of being poor at reading nonverbal messages. If you teach them to do it correctly, the signs of emotional disturbance disappear.”

Dr. Nowicki believes that the problem is a learning disability, akin to reading problems. Because the language of emotion is nonverbal, skill at reading such messages is crucial for psychological adjustment.

“If a child makes consistent errors in using nonverbal language, such as standing too close when talking to someone or talking too loud or soft”, said Dr. Nowicki, “other children will see them as strange and to be avoided”.

In one approach, children are trained to read facial expressions. They begin by watching videotapes of expressions and try to tell if the faces are expressing different feelings. Once they are able to distinguish expressions, they try to express those same feelings themselves. The children are videotaped, and then shown what they are doing right or wrong.

Finally, the children try out what they have learned in a controlled situation, showing what they would do, for example, if they met another child they would like to make friends with.

“We’ve tried the training with 150 children so far, and the results have been quite positive”, said Dr. Nowicki, adding that some children have become markedly better at making friends and getting along with their teachers.

I. Getting the Message

A. After reading the article, indicate if each statement is true (T) or false (F).

___ 1. This article tells us about researchers who were interested in finding children with a particular learning problem and then helping them to overcome it.

___ 2. Children taking the nonverbal test tried to interpret the messages of others and also tried to send messages with gestures and facial expressions.

___ 3. Children with nonverbal “reading” problems tend to be less intelligent than students without this problem.

___ 4. Children with nonverbal “reading” problems tend to get lower grades in school than the other students.

___ 5. The problem described in the article is a learning disability that can be treated with some success.

___ 6. People use nonverbal communication more often to convey information than to convey emotions.

B. Read the following list of behaviours. Identify with a V each one that sends a verbal message and an N each one that sends a nonverbal message. Try to imagine what kind of information could be “hidden” behind a nonverbal message.

___ 1. crying ___ 4. using slang

___ 2. asking for help ___ 5. applauding

___ 3. slamming a door ___ 6. shaking your fist

II. Expanding Your Vocabulary

A. Getting Meaning from Context

Use context clues to determine the meaning of each word, found in the paragraph indicated in parentheses. Choose the right definition.

1. host (1):	someone who has guests a great deal of
2. slides (3):	playground equipment to slide down photographs that can be shown on a wall or screen
3. like (5):	such as, similar to enjoy, prefer
4. tended to be/ do (6):	it happened occasionally it usually happened
5. screening (8):	putting a screen on a window or door separating one group from another
6. setbacks (8):	reversals in progress depression
7. scale (9):	a machine used to determine weight a series of marks along a line, used to measure
8. positive (20):	successful indicating a presence of disease

B. Using Negative Prefixes

There are many negative prefixes in English. You’ll find these examples in this reading: dis-, im-, in-, non- and un-. You’ll also find the prefix mis-, which means wrong. Put the correct prefix before each word listed. Then discuss the meaning of the words. Use the words in the sentences of your own.

1. ___ advertently 5. ___ verbal

2. ___ aware 6. ___ willingly

3. ___ interpret 7. ___ ability

4. ___ popular

III. Making Sense of Sentences

A. Writing Noun Clauses with That

In many sentences in this article, that introduces a noun clause that serves an object. To study examples of this type of sentence, reread the first sentences of paragraphs 6, 7, 10 and 16. Then complete the following sentences with ideas from the article.

1. Dr. Nowicki probably hopes that ___ .

2. The research descibed in this article showed that ___ .

B. Writing Adjective Clauses with That

Sometimes clauses beginning with that are adjective clauses that describe the preceding noun. In the first sentence of this article, that afflict children is an adjective clause describing the word problems. Other examples are in paragraphs 2 and 14. Complete the adjective clauses with information from the article.

1. Children that ___ tend to be unpopular.

2. The researchers used a test that ___ .

IV. Talking and Writing

Discuss the following topics. Then choose one of them to write about.

1. In the society you live, what are some examples of polite and impolite nonverbal behaviour?

2. Have you ever had a problem because you misread a nonverbal message? Tell what happened.