My main research interest concerns the study of gesture and its relation to spoken language from a developmental and a crosslinguistic perspective.
Focusing on these lines of investigations, I studied how the development of the ability to use gestures with different functions is linked to the development of textual and pragmatic abilities. I also carried out a research on the temporal coordination between gesture and speech in narrative discourse produced by bilingual and monolingual adult speakers, together with Elena Nicoladis and Paula Marentette. Moreover, I have recently conducted a study focusing on gesture production in relation to speech fluency in child and adult language learners' discourse, in collaboration with Marianne Gullberg.
My current work centers on the comparison of spoken and gestural behaviors across cultures and languages, targeting in particular narrative discourse produced by Italian and Swedish adult speakers.
I am also interested in first language acquisition and I am investigating cohesion in narrative discourse in Italian children.