Their enduring commitment to help minority students realize the power of research in their lives is both exciting and inspiring. While the body is conventionally viewed as a central medium of expression and the mind is seen as central to thinking, the endpoint of any intellective activity is always some movement, action or activity. Indeed, our research has begun to map out more intricate connections between thinking and the use of the body in communication. Young children between the ages of three and six years were naturalistically observed in pre-school, creative movement, and ballet classes. Evidence of the use of metaphoric gesture was also observed across the three-year age span.
Young children communicate with their bodies as well as their voices.
Indeed, the body plays a major role in communication and, as we argue below, in thought as well. For many years, little research has attempted to investigate the complex association that non-verbal behavior shares with thought processes. However, research emanating from the neurosciences begins to address this issue more closely. One such study suggests a different view of the relation between body and mind. It seems that our propensity to use voice as a means of communication may not only be innate but also learned, giving some breadth to a hypothesis that non-verbal behavior and thinking share a unique connection.