Gestures and multimodal development

Guidetti, Michèle; Fibigerová, Kateřina; Colletta, Jean-Marc

doi:10.1075/z.188.16gui

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…At around 14-16 months of age, both gestures and speech are used together with similar frequency, but at around 20 months, speech becomes more prominent in communication. This predominance of speech cannot be only attributed to a reduction of children's gestural repertoire, but also to a parallel and larger expansion of the vocal repertoire (Guidetti et al, 2014;Volterra et al, 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Communicative gestures in 7–12‐month infants: A phylogenetic comparative approach

Rodrigues

Marôco²,

Frota

2021

Infant and Child Development

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Different methodologies applied in human and non-human primate studies limit the comparisons that can be made.The early communicative gestures of 10 children between 7 and 12 months were analysed using a descriptive approach usually found in non-human primate studies.Silent-visual gestures were the most used, followed by con- Highlights• A descriptive and comparable approach to work on non-human primate gestures is used to study the early gestures in human infants.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Communicative gestures in 7–12‐month infants: A phylogenetic comparative approach

Rodrigues

Marôco²,

Frota

2021

Infant and Child Development

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“…Infants aged 11 to 16 months transition from the use of gestures to the use of spoken words to communicate with surrounding adults (Aureli et al., 2017; Bates et al., 1975; Igualada et al., 2015; Mccune & Zlatev, 2015; Murillo et al., 2021). Speech onset results in the coexistence of the two communication modalities, although the vocal modality progressively becomes prominent (Guidetti et al., 2014; Iverson & Goldin‐Meadow, 2005). According to evo‐devo theories, this human‐specific vocal prominence may have emerged over the course of evolution from the selective pressures on both infants and parents to provide mutual attention (Falk, 2004; Mehr & Krasnow, 2017; Oller et al., 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Patterns of attention‐sensitive communication contribute to 7–20‐month‐olds' emerging pragmatic skills

Dafreville,

Guidetti,

Bourjade

2024

Infancy

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The present study aimed at investigating the ability of 7‐ to 20‐month‐old infants to display attention‐sensitive communication using either canonical markers of language acquisition (e.g., pointing gestures, canonical babblings) or other signals based on the physical features actually perceived by the mother in everyday interaction (e.g., body movements, mouth sounds). We studied 30 French mother‐infant dyads in naturalistic settings. We assessed the infants' attention‐sensitive communication through unimodal and cross‐modal adjustment, defined as the capacity of infants to address visually inattentive mothers by avoiding visual communication mismatches and/or favoring communication matches through audible‐or‐contact signals. Unimodal and cross‐modal adjustments were tested for specific signals across spontaneous “conditions” of maternal visual attention (attentive/inattentive) from video footage filmed in the home. Both canonical markers of language development and signals belonging to an extended repertoire of communication were used by infants to adjust to their mother's visual attention. Gaze‐coordinated signals were overall not significantly better adjusted to maternal attention than non‐gaze‐coordinated signals, except for specific silent‐visual signals at certain ages. Overall, these results indicate that attention‐sensitive communication is relevant to the development of early pragmatic skills and that the intentional use of signals may be more reliably approximated by this capacity than by gaze‐coordination with signals.

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“…Despite such a universality, science has reached no consensus so far about the evolutionary history of voluntary control over the vocal cords in early humans, apart from all other primates (Locke, 1996;Bergman et al, 2019). In line with this discontinuity in evolution, early pragmatics in human infants developing language has shown consistent evidence for gestures predating vocalisations in terms of intentional and conventional uses (Bates et al, 1975;Guidetti et al, 2014;Zlatev and McCune, 2014;Donnellan et al, 2019). Although vocal behaviour has the potential to attain the recipient even in the case of visual inattention, experiencing visual breakdowns might be necessary for signallers to switch from gestures to vocalisations, both in language acquisition (Oller et al, 2016;Bourjade et al, 2023) and in the course of evolution (Falk, 2004;Locke, 2006;Mehr and Krasnow, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attention-sensitive signalling by 7- to 20-month-old infants in a comparative perspective

Dafreville,

Guidetti,

Bourjade

2024

Front. Psychol.

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Attention-sensitive signalling is the pragmatic skill of signallers who adjust the modality of their communicative signals to their recipient’s attention state. This study provides the first comprehensive evidence for its onset and development in 7-to 20-month-olds human infants, and underlines its significance for language acquisition and evolutionary history. Mother-infant dyads (N = 30) were studied in naturalistic settings, sampled according to three developmental periods (in months); [7–10], [11–14], and [15–20]. Infant’s signals were classified by dominant perceptible sensory modality and proportions compared according to their mother’s visual attention, infant-directed speech and tactile contact. Maternal visual attention and infant-directed speech were influential on the onset and steepness of infants’ communicative adjustments. The ability to inhibit silent-visual signals towards visually inattentive mothers (unimodal adjustment) predated the ability to deploy audible-or-contact signals in this case (cross-modal adjustment). Maternal scaffolding of infant’s early pragmatic skills through her infant-directed speech operates on the facilitation of infant’s unimodal adjustment, the preference for oral over gestural signals, and the audio-visual combinations of signals. Additionally, breakdowns in maternal visual attention are associated with increased use of the audible-oral modality/channel. The evolutionary role of the sharing of attentional resources between parents and infants into the emergence of modern language is discussed.

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Gestures and multimodal development

Cited by 5 publications

References 33 publications

Communicative gestures in 7–12‐month infants: A phylogenetic comparative approach

Communicative gestures in 7–12‐month infants: A phylogenetic comparative approach

Patterns of attention‐sensitive communication contribute to 7–20‐month‐olds' emerging pragmatic skills

Attention-sensitive signalling by 7- to 20-month-old infants in a comparative perspective

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