Gesturing to Infants: Relations Between Infant Posture and Caregiver Gestures During Everyday Play

• In Event: Why Parent-Infant Interaction Matters: Impacts of Parent’s Multimodal Inputs on Infant’s Perceptual Experiences

Abstract

Caregivers often gesture when communicating with their infants. They show objects to offer them for play, point to specific people, places, and things, and request movement by beckoning with outstretched arms. Research suggests that caregiver gesture input may be shaped by advances in infant motor development. In particular, infants’ postural development (i.e., how they position their bodies) shapes opportunities for what infants can see. For example, infants mostly see the floor in front of their hands when they are prone (e.g., all fours, crawling) but can see the breadth of a space when they are sitting or upright (e.g., standing, walking). Caregivers may be sensitive to their infants’ visual perspective (based on their posture) and might capitalize on these moments to provide gesture input, as these may be times when infants can reap the communicative benefits of caregivers’ gestures. Does infant posture shape caregiver gesture input?

To address this question, we observed 88 infant-caregiver dyads during everyday activities at home for approximately 35 minutes. All infants were 12-month-olds; 43 were pre-walkers and 45 could walk independently. From each home video, we identified all infant-directed gestures and categorized them by type as showing (holding up an object), pointing (to a person, place, or thing), indicating (by tapping on an object), movement (beckoning with arms), conventional (clapping, waving), or requesting (with an open hand). Coders also noted infants’ postures (e.g., sitting, prone, upright) at the precise moment of each caregiver gesture to document how likely caregiver gestures were to co-occur with each infant posture category.

Caregivers gestured frequently. They produced an average of 43 gestures total (SD = 22) or 1.3 gestures per minute (SD = 0.74), and this was similar for pre-walking and walking infants (p = .643; Figure 1A). When caregivers did gesture, they were more likely to show their infants an object or point to something compared to conventional, indicate, movement, and request gestures (all ps < .05; Figure 1B). Finally, we discovered a significant relation in the co-occurrence of infant posture and caregiver gesture input (p < .001). Specifically, pre-walking infants were significantly more likely to be sitting vs. upright or prone when caregivers gestured, and walking infants were similarly likely to be sitting or upright compared to prone at the precise moment their caregivers produced a gesture (ps <.001; Figure 1C).

Taken together, our data suggest that caregivers may be sensitive to their infant’s visual perspective when communicating with gestures, as they were more likely to produce gestures when infants adopted sitting and upright postures. Gesture input was overwhelmingly likely to occur when infants’ postures provided them with the opportunity to see their caregivers’ hands, regardless of their locomotor status. In ongoing analyses, we are identifying the direction of infants’ gaze when caregivers gestured to examine whether infants were looking at these communicative signals.

Authors

• Joshua L Schneider, University of Pittsburgh
  Presenting Author

• Samantha Plate, University of Pittsburgh

• Emily Roemer Britsch, University of Pittsburgh

• Anna Donato, Boston University

• Morgan Kistler, University of Pittsburgh

• Juliana Agnolet, University of Pittsburgh

• Jana M Iverson, Boston University