A longitudinal examination of the transition to symbolic communication in the second year of life

Abstract

Between 10 and 24 months of age, children progress from communicating through conventional signals to communicating through symbols in a variety of situations. The present study investigates this transition analysing mother-child communication frames and the child's communicative acts, and tracing the developmental changes in both frames and communicative acts. Four children (2 girls, 2 boys) and their mothers were observed longitudinally and extensively, from 10 to 24 months of age, using a multiple case-study method. Through the detailed investigation of these single cases, clear developmental trajectories were found, showing that conventional frames and representational gestures 'bridge' the transition from attentional to symbolic communication. There were significant differences between dyads and children in the developmental trajectories for several frames and communicative acts. The results not only confirm previous findings on the development of verbal and gestural communication, but provide new insights into the transition to symbolic communication in the second year of life, first because of the use of frame analysis and second because of a focus on individual trajectories in development. Copyright # 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.Key words: communication; symbols; mother-child frames; developmental transition; multiple case study; longitudinal Between 10 and 24 months of age, children typically progress from communicating through conventional signals (vocal and gestural) to communicating through symbols (words and representational gestures) in a variety of situations.

Gesture production and language development

“…Moreover, the developmental trend of gesture production of children with Down syndrome with better lexical outcomes at 48 months is similar to the developmental trend of representational gestures in typically developing children (Camaioni et al, 2003). The inverted U-shaped profile of gesture production identified in typical development has been interpreted as a sign of the role of representational gestures as a "bridge" from a pre-symbolic to a symbolic way of expressing meanings; therefore, the extensive use of gestures in children with Down syndrome could be interpreted as a "bridge" from preverbal to verbal communication.…”

“…Children in the second group, who showed a decrease or a substantial stability in gesture production from 36 to 48 months of age, showed a remarkable growth in their lexical abilities and had a significantly higher frequency of word production at both 36 and 48 months. Therefore, it appears as though better lexical skills are related to a reduction in gesture production in children with Down syndrome, as found in typically developing children (Camaioni et al, 2003;Iverson et al, 1994). These data support the hypothesis that children with Down syndrome have a particular predisposition to communicate with gestures as a developmental strategy to compensate for their verbal production difficulties (Iverson et al, 2003;Zampini, 2008).…”

“…For instance, Caselli et al (1998) found that the use of the gestural modality in children with Down syndrome was significantly higher also in older children and in children with a large vocabulary size. However, the potential decrease or increase in gesture production as a consequence of lexical development, as identified in typically developing children (Camaioni et al, 2003), has not been longitudinally explored in children with Down syndrome.…”

Sensitivity to Confidence Cues Increases during the Second Year of Life

“…There is also a strong possibility that this emergence is related to the development of children's understanding of the meaning behind the conventional gestures indicating confidence or uncertainty. There is important development in the use of conventional gestures (e.g., waving good‐bye or shaking one's head to say no) in the second year of life (e.g., Camaioni, Aureli, Bellagamba, & Fogel, ; Guidetti, ; Thal & Tobias, ), and the little data available specifically on toddlers’ production of gestures such as shrugging shoulders to indicate uncertainty suggest that these are produced relatively infrequently in very young children (Acredolo & Goodwyn, ; Guidetti, ). To our knowledge, there is little research specifically examining the time line of infants’ understanding of the meaning of specific gestures, but, given the increase in toddlers’ overall communicative abilities between 18 and 24 months, it is likely that an increased understanding of the meaning behind certain culture‐specific gestures contributes to the greater use of confidence cues.…”

Using the Communication Matrix to Assess Expressive Skills in Early Communicators

“…In other words, language is a culmination of communicative competence that begins at (if not before) birth. Over the intervening years, further evidence has confirmed the strong relationship between gesture and speech in children without disabilities (Camaioni, Aureli, Bellagamba, & Fogel, 2003;Goldin-Meadow, 2000;Iverson & Thelen, 1999;McNeill, 2005;Rowe & Goldin-Meadow, 2009;Watt, Wetherby, & Shumway, 2006).…”