Scrutinizing reference: how gesture and speech are coordinated in mother-child interaction

Maternal ostensive naming was investigated in a cross-sectional study of 12 children aged 0;10, 1;3 and 1;6, and a follow-up study of four children aged 1;3. Display, demonstration and pointing were coded with regard to whether and how co-occurring speech referred to gesture focus. Multivariate log-linear frequency analyses found that mothers' coordination of speech with gesture varied with age and the gesture used. Maternal naming of objects was most frequent with children aged 0;10. Maternal gesture-speech coordination with children aged 1;3 and 1;6 differed in two related ways: (1) actions were named more frequently than objects; and (2) mothers often combined gesture with complementary speech referring, not to gesture focus, but to an action to be performed with the object indicated. At all ages, pointing was rarely used to name ostensively, and occurred most often in combination with complementary reference. Maternal input was found to be significantly correlated with children's reported receptive vocabulary.