Pointing and social awareness: declaring and requesting in the second year

Franco, Fabia; Butterworth, George

doi:10.1017/s0305000900008813

Cited by 272 publications

(319 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…The discrimination in the present study rests on silent, sign-phonetic segments that have no meaning in isolation. Although a gesture used by nonsigning people, such as a point, will likely have been observed by infants, points have meaning; perhaps not for 4-month-olds, but certainly for 14-month-olds (Franco & Butterworth, 1996). However, hearing infants are unlikely to have observed the use of such sign-phonetic segments used in a linguistic way, although they may have seen the actual handshapes in gestures produced by nonsigning people.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

New Insights Into Old Puzzles From Infants' Categorical Discrimination of Soundless Phonetic Units

Baker

Golinkoff²,

Petitto

2006

Language Learning and Development

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For 4 decades, serious scientific debate has persisted as to whether infants' remarkable capacity to detect and categorize phonetic units is derived from language-specific mechanisms or whether this capacity develops out of general perceptual mechanisms. The heart of this controversy has revolved around whether the young human brain is specialized to detect the underlying contrasting patterns in language or whether it simply processes general auditory perceptual features of sound that, over time, become utilized for language learning. This article takes a novel look at this question by using soundless phonetic units from a natural signed language as a new research tool. Research finds that 4-month-old hearing infants categorize soundless phonetic units on the basis of linguistic category membership, whereas 14-month-old infants fail to do so-thereby exhibiting the identical initial capacity and classic developmental shift in infant categorical discrimination of native and nonnative (foreign language) phonetic units in speech. These results suggest a novel testable hypothesis: Infants may begin life with the capacity to detect specific patterned units with alternating contrasts unique to natural language organization and to categorize them on the basis of linguistic category membership.Out of the chaos of sights and sounds in our world, all infants discover the finite set of phonetic units that forms the basis of their specific native language by around 10 months of age. For 4 decades, heated scientific debate has centered on how infants come to have this remarkable capacity. Some have argued that this capacity reflects the neural superiority of the human brain to process specific properties of natural language, whereas others have argued that this capacity is built up from mechanisms of general perception. Here we take a new look at this decadesold puzzle by examining hearing, English-exposed infants' discrimination of nonnative (foreign language) phonetic units that are articulated on the hand in natural signed language. The use of soundless phonetic units allows us to pull apart whether infants have only discrimination for sound, or for language, be it from the mouth or on the hands. The use of two ages (4 and 14 months) that straddle the developmental time when nonnative contrasts in speech are first discriminated and then not discriminated gives us a window into whether the same developmental processes are at work when nonnative phonetic units are on the hands, as well as new insights into the universal nature of these processes in development.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

New Insights Into Old Puzzles From Infants' Categorical Discrimination of Soundless Phonetic Units

Baker

Golinkoff²,

Petitto

2006

Language Learning and Development

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“…Furthermore, 12-month-olds who point with their index finger-compared to infants who only point with the whole hand-understand communicative intentions better, point more frequently, and accompany their pointing more often by communicative vocalizations (Liszkowski & Tomasello, 2011). Hand shape and motives of pointing appear associated in young infants, with more open hand shapes in imperative pointing (Franco & Butterworth, 1996). However, this association depends to some extent on the assessment method (Gr€ unloh & Liszkowski, 2015) and the age of the children, because index finger use in imperative pointing increases with age (Esteve-Gibert & Prieto, 2014).…”

mentioning

confidence: 91%

In Infants' Hands: Identification of Preverbal Infants at Risk for Primary Language Delay

et al. 2016

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Early identification of primary language delay is crucial to implement effective prevention programs. Available screening instruments are based on parents' reports and have only insufficient predictive validity. This study employed observational measures of preverbal infants' gestural communication to test its predictive validity for identifying later language delays. Pointing behavior of fifty-nine 12-month-old infants was analyzed and related to their language skills 1 year later. Results confirm predictive validity of preverbal communication for language skills with the hand shape of pointing being superior compared to the underlying motives for pointing (imperative vs. declarative). Twelve-month-olds who pointed only with their open hand but never with their index finger were at risk for primary language delay at 2 years of age.

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“…Pointing is one of the most widely used human referential gestures 5 . It strongly predicts language development 1,6 and has been suggested as a key component of language acquisition 7 .…”

mentioning

confidence: 95%

Referential gestures in fish collaborative hunting

2013

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In humans, referential gestures intentionally draw the attention of a partner to an object of mutual interest, and are considered a key element in language development. Outside humans, referential gestures have only been attributed to great apes and, most recently, ravens. This was interpreted as further evidence for the comparable cognitive abilities of primates and corvids. Here we describe a signal that coral reef fishes, the grouper Plectropomus pessuliferus marisrubri and coral trout Plectropomus leopardus, use to indicate hidden prey to cooperative hunting partners, including giant moray eels Gymnothorax javanicus, Napoleon wrasses Chelinus undulatus and octopuses Octopus cyanea. We provide evidence that the signal possesses the five attributes proposed to infer a referential gesture: it is directed towards an object, mechanically ineffective, directed towards a potential recipient, receives a voluntary response and demonstrates hallmarks of intentionality. Thus, referential gesture use is not restricted to large-brained vertebrates.

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Pointing and social awareness: declaring and requesting in the second year

Cited by 272 publications

References 30 publications

New Insights Into Old Puzzles From Infants' Categorical Discrimination of Soundless Phonetic Units

New Insights Into Old Puzzles From Infants' Categorical Discrimination of Soundless Phonetic Units

In Infants' Hands: Identification of Preverbal Infants at Risk for Primary Language Delay

Referential gestures in fish collaborative hunting

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