Two hundred and forty children, selected according to their age, ethnicity and sex, participated in a study of the encoding and decoding of symbolic hand gestures. Twenty‐two gestures, chosen from a larger list of 101 gestures, were classified in a pre‐test as either Italian or Australian gestures and were presented to the children in ordinary or stroboscopic photographs. Both the encoding and decoding studies conformed to a 2 (Italian or Australian ethnic background) × 2 (male or female) × 2 (3‐year or 6‐year‐old) design. Age and ethnic background were shown to be major variables affecting gesture decoding. A significant interaction between age, ethnicity and sex was found for gesture encoding of Italian gestures. It was suggested that verbal fluency and the social roles of children in the Italo‐Australian sub‐culture might account for the superiority of the 6‐year‐old Italo‐Australian girls in encoding Italian gestures. The need to investigate the larger issue of the effects of acculturation on non‐ve