Maternal label and gesture use affects acquisition of specific object names.

Ten mothers were observed prospectively, interacting with their infants aged 0 ; 10 in two contexts (picture description and noun description). Maternal communicative behaviours were coded for volubility, gestural production and labelling style. Verbal labelling events were categorized into three exclusive categories: label only; label plus deictic gesture; label plus iconic gesture. We evaluated the predictive relations between maternal communicative style and children's subsequent acquisition of ten target nouns. Strong relations were observed between maternal communicative style and children's acquisition of the target nouns. Further, even controlling for maternal volubility and maternal labelling, maternal use of iconic gestures predicted the timing of acquisition of nouns in comprehension. These results support the proposition that maternal gestural input facilitates linguistic development, and suggest that such facilitation may be a function of gesture type.

[1]  Virginia A. Marchman,et al.  MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories , 2006 .

[2]  Ping Li,et al.  Does frequency count? Parental input and the acquisition of vocabulary , 2008, Journal of Child Language.

[3]  M. Harris,et al.  Early lexical development and maternal speech: a comparison of children's initial and subsequent uses of words , 1991, Journal of Child Language.

[4]  K. Nelson,et al.  The relation of maternal language to variation in rate and style of language acquisition , 1993, Journal of Child Language.

[5]  Susan Carey,et al.  Acquiring a Single New Word , 1978 .

[6]  Virginia Volterra,et al.  From Gesture to Language in Hearing and Deaf Children , 1990 .

[7]  L. Acredolo,et al.  Symbolic gesture versus word: is there a modality advantage for onset of symbol use? , 1993, Child development.

[8]  S. Kita.  Pointing: Where language, culture, and cognition meet , 2003 .

[9]  B. MacWhinney.  The CHILDES project: tools for analyzing talk , 1992 .

[10]  L. Acredolo,et al.  Symbolic Gesturing in Language Development , 1985 .

[11]  Speech and gesture integration , 1998 .

[12]  J. M. Anglin,et al.  Word, object, and conceptual development , 1977 .

[13]  S. Macdonald,et al.  Novel word acquisition in children with Down syndrome: does modality make a difference? , 2000, Journal of communication disorders.

[14]  M. Brent,et al.  The role of exposure to isolated words in early vocabulary development , 2001, Cognition.

[15]  Susan Goldin,et al.  The nature and functions of gesture in children's communication , 1998 .

[16]  K. Bard,et al.  Maternal gestures with 20-month-old infants in two contexts. , 2005, Developmental science.

[17]  Laura L. Namy,et al.  Verbal Labels and Gestural Routines in Parental Communication with Young Children , 2000 .

[18]  L. Rescorla,et al.  Mother-child synchrony and communicative reciprocity in late-talking toddlers. , 1996, Journal of speech and hearing research.

[19]  Letitia R. Naigles,et al.  How children use input to acquire a lexicon. , 2002, Child development.

[20]  K. Nelson,et al.  Mothers' speech to children and syntactic development: some simple relationships , 1979, Journal of Child Language.

[21]  G. Schafer,et al.  Toddlers’ novel word learning: Effects of phonological representation, vocabulary size and parents’ ostensive behaviour , 2005 .

[22]  M. Tomasello,et al.  Variability in early communicative development. , 1994, Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.

[23]  M. Bornstein,et al.  Maternal responsiveness and children's achievement of language milestones. , 2001, Child development.

[24]  N Salerni,et al.  Vocabulary development in Italian children: a longitudinal evaluation of quantitative and qualitative aspects , 2001, Journal of Child Language.

[25]  K. Nelson,et al.  Structure and strategy in learning to talk. , 1973 .

[26]  R G Schwartz,et al.  The role of input frequency in lexical acquisition , 1983, Journal of Child Language.

[27]  Christopher Barry,et al.  Naming the Snodgrass and Vanderwart Pictures: Effects of Age of Acquisition, Frequency, and Name Agreement , 1997 .

[28]  J. D. Bonvillian,et al.  Early Sign Language Acquisition: Implications for Theories of Language Acquisition , 1990 .

[29]  Andrew W. Ellis,et al.  Age of Acquisition Norms for a Large Set of Object Names and Their Relation to Adult Estimates and Other Variables , 1997 .

[30]  L. Acredolo,et al.  Impact of Symbolic Gesturing on Early Language Development , 2000 .

[31]  S. Goldin-Meadow,et al.  Differences in Early Gesture Explain SES Disparities in Child Vocabulary Size at School Entry , 2009, Science.

[32]  G. Butterworth.  Pointing Is the Royal Road to Language for Babies , 2003 .

[33]  Michael P. Kaschak,et al.  Body posture facilitates retrieval of autobiographical memories , 2007, Cognition.

[34]  L. Acredolo,et al.  Symbolic gesturing in normal infants. , 1988, Child development.

[35]  L. Acredolo,et al.  Encouraging symbolic gestures: a new perspective on the relationship between gesture and speech. , 1998, New directions for child development.

[36]  Eric Wanner,et al.  Language acquisition: the state of the art , 1982 .

[37]  E. Hoff-Ginsberg.  Influences of mother and child on maternal talkativeness , 1994 .

[38]  P. Rollins,et al.  Caregivers' contingent comments to 9-month-old infants: Relationships with later language , 2003, Applied Psycholinguistics.

[39]  M. C. Caselli,et al.  Gesturing in mother-child interactions * , 1999 .

[40]  Olga Capirci,et al.  From communication to language in two modalities , 1994 .

[41]  H. Benedict,et al.  The relationship of pragmatic dimensions of mothers' speech to the referential-expressive distinction , 1983, Journal of Child Language.

[42]  A. Bryk,et al.  Early vocabulary growth: Relation to language input and gender. , 1991 .

[43]  H. Benedict,et al.  Early lexical development: comprehension and production , 1979, Journal of Child Language.

[44]  J. Reznick,et al.  Diary vs. representative checklist assessment of productive vocabulary , 1994, Journal of Child Language.

[45]  Michael Tomasello,et al.  Children Extend Both Words and Non-Verbal Actions to Novel Exemplars , 2003 .