What's in a Name When It Isn't a Word? 17-Month-Olds' Mapping of Nonverbal Symbols to Object Categories

Infants begin acquiring object labels as early as 12 months of age. Recent research has indicated that the ability to acquire object names extends beyond verbal labels to other symbolic forms, such as gestures. This experiment examines the latitude of infants' early naming abilities. We tested 17-month-olds' ability to map gestures, nonverbal sounds, and pictograms to object categories using a forced-choice triad task. Results indicated that infants accept a wide range of symbolic forms as object names when they are embedded in familiar referential naming routines. These data suggest that infants may initially have no priority for words over other symbolic forms as object names, although the relative status of words appears to change with development. The implications of these findings for the development of criteria for determining whether a symbol constitutes an object name early in development are considered.