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Examining Gesture Production in the Presence of Communication Challenges
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Published on: January 26, 2024

Do pointing gestures by infants provoke comments from adults?

Takeshi Kishimoto1, Yasuhiro Shizawa, Jun Yasuda

  • 1Department of Comparative and Developmental Psychology, Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka University, 1-2 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan. kissy@hus.osaka-u.ac.jp

Infant Behavior & Development
|June 15, 2007
PubMed
Summary

Infants' pointing gestures may boost language development by eliciting more adult speech. This study observed children, finding caregivers spoke sooner after pointing, supporting the link between gestures and early language acquisition.

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Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Linguistics
  • Child Development

Background:

  • Pointing gestures in infants are theorized as precursors to language acquisition.
  • Previous research suggests a correlation between infant pointing and language development indices.
  • The mechanism is hypothesized to involve adults responding verbally to infant gestures.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether infant pointing gestures elicit verbal responses from adult caregivers.
  • To test the hypothesis that pointing facilitates language acquisition by increasing adult engagement.

Main Methods:

  • Observational study of 13 infants (7 boys, 6 girls) during free play in a nursery.
  • Collection of post-pointing and matched-control data sequences.
  • Quantitative comparison of adult verbal responses in both sequence types.

Main Results:

  • Adult caregivers significantly increased verbal responses to infants following pointing gestures.
  • Verbal responses occurred at an earlier stage in post-pointing sequences compared to control sequences.
  • This indicates a direct elicitation of caregiver speech by infant pointing.

Conclusions:

  • Infant pointing gestures serve as a significant communicative act that elicits verbal input from adults.
  • This increased verbal interaction likely contributes to the proposed role of pointing in early language acquisition.
  • The findings support the hypothesis that pointing is a crucial developmental milestone for language learning.