Language development at 18 months is related to multimodal communicative strategies at 12 months

Abstract

The present study investigated the degree to which an infants' use of simultaneous gesture-speech combinations during controlled social interactions predicts later language development. Nineteen infants participated in a declarative pointing task involving three different social conditions: two experimental conditions (a) available, when the adult was visually attending to the infant but did not attend to the object of reference jointly with the child, and (b) unavailable, when the adult was not visually attending to neither the infant nor the object; and (c) a baseline condition, when the adult jointly engaged with the infant's object of reference. At 12 months of age measures related to infants' speech-only productions, pointing-only gestures, and simultaneous pointing-speech combinations were obtained in each of the three social conditions. Each child's lexical and grammatical output was assessed at 18 months of age through parental report. Results revealed a significant interaction between social condition and type of communicative production. Specifically, only simultaneous pointing-speech combinations increased in frequency during the available condition compared to baseline, while no differences were found for speech-only and pointing-only productions. Moreover, simultaneous pointing-speech combinations in the available condition at 12 months positively correlated with lexical and grammatical development at 18 months of age. The ability to selectively use this multimodal communicative strategy to engage the adult in joint attention by drawing his attention toward an unseen event or object reveals 12-month-olds' clear understanding of referential cues that are relevant for language development. This strategy to successfully initiate and maintain joint attention is related to language development as it increases learning opportunities from social interactions.

Properties of vocalization- and gesture-combinations in the transition to first words

“…This finding is consistent with previous research showing the predictive character of pointing with vocalization (Igualada et al, 2015;Murillo & Belinchón, 2012; Gros-Louis, 2014) on later language abilities, and the relevance of declarative function on this pointing predictive role (Colonnesi et al, 2010).…”

“…Wu and GrosLouis (2014) also found that gesture-vocal coordination was related to infants' linguistic skills at 1;3. In the same line, infants who were able to integrate pointing and speech at Running head: VOCALIZATIONS AND GESTURAL COMBINATION 6 1;0 showed better vocabulary abilities at the age of 1;6 (Igualada, Bosch & Prieto, 2015). Butcher and Goldin Meadow (2000) found that children temporally coordinate gestures and speech, and the two modalities are also semantically integrated, but they claimed that this synchrony or coordination begins in the transition from the one-word to the two-word stage.…”

Interpelación entre vocalizaciones y desarrollo prosódico en funciones comunicativas tempranas

“…En cuanto a la delimitación exacta de la vocalización, se utilizó el criterio de codificar una vocalización como expresión independiente cuando había una separación superior a los 300 ms. (Igualada, Bosch & Prieto, 2015;Oller, Wieman, Doyle & Ross, 1976). …”

“…Finalmente, otras explicaciones se basan en la existencia de una motivación innata en los bebés para comunicarse con el entorno (Blomm, 1993;Trevarthen, 1979). Ahora bien, la investigación sigue siendo necesaria; por ejemplo, en relación con el rol que adquiere la función pragmática en las combinaciones gesto-habla en contextos socio-comunicativos específicos, y su valor potencial predictivo en el posterior desarrollo del lenguaje (Igualada, Bosch & Prieto, 2015).…”

Interrelación entre gestos y vocalizaciones en funciones comunicativas tempranas: Evidencias desde la lengua vasca

“…Finalmente, otras explicaciones se basan en la existencia de una motivación innata en los bebés para comunicarse con el entorno (Trevarthen, 1979;Blomm, 1993). Ahora bien, la investigación sigue siendo necesaria; por ejemplo, para conocer el papel que adquiere la función pragmática en las combinaciones gesto-habla en contextos sociocomunicativos específicos, y su valor potencial predictivo en el posterior desarrollo del lenguaje (Igualada, Bosch & Prieto, 2015).…”