Poster #117 - Intention matters: Relations between parent pointing, infant pointing, and developing language ability

• In Event: 1-115 - Poster Session 03
  In Poster Session: PS 03 Section - Language, Communication

Integrative Statement

Infant’s pointing production toward the end of the first year of life is an early marker of emerging communicative skill and a predictor of later language ability. Considering infants’ pointing at the level of communicative intention has revealed important differences between different types of points (e.g., imperative versus declarative points) in terms of what they reveal about a child’s current social-cognitive ability and in how well they predict language development. Specifically, declarative points, those that are produced with the communicative intention of sharing attention to, or emotion or information about an object or event, are considered more advanced and better predict later language skill. Additionally, there is a documented link between parents’ pointing and their children’s own pointing and language development, however this literature has largely ignored the communicative intent behind parents’ pointing. Our aim in the current study was thus to examine whether individual differences in the communicative intentions behind parents’ pointing with their children is related to the type of points that their children produce and/or to their children’s developing language abilities.
We measured parents’ and infants’ pointing during a 10-minute free-play at child age 12-months (n=52). Points were categorized according to communicative intention: imperative, expressive declarative (to share emotion), or informative declarative (to share information). Due to the low number of total infant points, infants were categorized as either producing declarative points or not. Infants’ expressive and receptive language was measured via parent report at 12-months (n=46), 18-months (n=44), and 24-months (n=47).
Parents’ use of declarative points was related to their child’s own declarative pointing production at 12-months. Mothers of infants who produced any declarative points tended to produce more declarative points themselves (t=-1.91, p<.10), as compared to mothers of infants who did not produce any declarative points. This relation seemed to be driven by mothers’ expressive declarative points (t=-1.79, p<.10). There were no relations between mother imperative points and infant pointing. Mothers’ expressive declarative pointing was positively correlated with infants’ receptive vocabulary at 12-months (r=.47, p<.01) and 18-months (r=.31, p<.05). When considered together in a regression model predicting 12-month infant receptive vocabulary, mothers’ expressive declarative points was a significant predictor above and beyond the effect of child declarative pointing. Further, the interaction between mothers’ and infants’ pointing was significant (Figure 1), such that the positive relation between mothers’ expressive declarative pointing and infants’ concurrent receptive language was present only for those infants who were also producing declarative points themselves. When compared as predictors of receptive vocabulary at 18-months, neither mother nor child pointing was a better predictor, nor was there a significant interaction between the two. Only infant declarative pointing predicted 24-month expressive vocabulary (t=2.38, p<.05), mothers’ pointing did not. These findings suggest that mothers’ early declarative pointing supports both their child’s early word learning and perhaps provides a model for their infant to begin using points as well. As the child learns the various communicative functions of points, their own production of points, and in particular their declarative points, predicts further language development.

Authors

• Virginia Salo, University of Maryland, College Park
  Presenting Author

• Bethany Reeb-Sutherland, Florida International University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Tahl Frenkel, Ziama Arkin Infancy Institute
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lindsay C Bowman, University of California Davis
  Non-Presenting Author

• Meredith Rowe, Harvard University
  Non-Presenting Author