Becoming a Communicative Partner: Infant Contingent Responsiveness to Maternal Language and Gestures

Abstract

Infant contingent responsiveness to maternal language and gestures was examined in 190 Mexican American, Dominican American, and African American infant–mother dyads when infants were 14 and 24 months. Dyads were video‐recorded during book‐sharing and play. Videos were coded for the timing of infants’ vocalizations and gestures and mothers’ referential language (i.e., statements that inform infants about objects and events in the world; e.g., “That's a big doggy!”), regulatory language (i.e., statements that regulate infants’ attention or actions; e.g., “Look at that”, “Put it down!”), and gestures. Infants of all three ethnicities responded within 3 sec of mothers’ language and gestures, increased their responsiveness over development, and displayed specificity in their responses: They vocalized and gestured following mothers’ referential language and gestures, but were less likely than chance to communicate following mothers’ regulatory language. At an individual level, responsive infants had responsive mothers.

Development of Infant Pointing from 10 to 12 months: The Role of Relevant Caregiver Responsiveness

“…In support, a correlational study (Miller & Gros‐Louis, ) showed that caregiver responses that did not follow in on the attentional focus of infants aged 13–16 months reduced infants’ concurrent frequency of gestures and gesture‐vocal combinations. Another study showed that infants were more likely to gesture when mothers responded to their gestures with referential language while they were less likely to gesture when mothers responded with regulatory language (Kuchirko, Tafuro, & Tamis‐LeMonda, ). Likewise, caregivers’ comments or actions on objects other than the target of infants’ points at 10–13 months were negatively related with the improvement in infants’ gesture scores from 10–13 to 15 months as measured by the MCDI questionnaire (Wu & Gros‐Louis, ).…”

The Role of Dyadic Coordination in Organizing Visual Attention in 5‐Month‐Old Infants

“…Specifically, we assessed how opposing signal‐to‐noise ratios of contingent sensitive and redirective responding among caregivers correspond to differences in infants’ attentional preferences toward socially relevant stimuli, as well as infants’ general attention span and reactivity to caregivers’ social prompts. Although all infants spent the majority of their time looking at objects, infants of highly sensitive caregivers showed attention patterns that imply social attunement (Kuchirko et al., ). This attunement was apparent within these infants’ looking preferences as well as the timing of their gaze shifts, which accommodated the content of their caregivers’ responses.…”

“…Nonetheless, our results taken together indicate that infants of highly sensitive caregivers may be more selectively attuned to their caregivers’ social cues than infants of highly redirective caregivers. Such selectivity may be a precursor to the specificity of vocal, gestural, and affective responding that older infants exhibit during communicative exchanges with adults (e.g., Beebe et al., ; Kuchirko et al., ), though further longitudinal research is needed to explore this possibility further.…”

“…One final skill important for attention sharing and overall communicative development is the ability to differentiate which social behaviors are relevant to attend and respond to, and which are not (Kuchirko, Tafuro, & Tamis Lemonda, ). Considering how caregiver sensitivity and redirectiveness might facilitate or hinder infants’ ability to distinguish relevant social cues, we expected high caregiver sensitivity to correspond with more refined and appropriate social attentional attunement on the part of infants (Kuchirko et al., ), and high redirectiveness to correspond with less selectivity and increased distractibility in response to caregivers’ behaviors. To examine the effects of caregiver sensitivity and redirectiveness on infants’ attention toward broader social cues, we assessed infants’ reactions to their caregivers’ contingent responses overall as well as specifically to responses that were non‐referential , that is, not related to any object or area of focus in the infant's immediate environment.…”

Transtorno do Espectro Autista e Interações Escolares: Sala de Aula e Pátio

“…Thus, interactive contexts are characterized as situations that provide learning and development due to symbolic mediation; therefore, "the path from object to child and from child to object passes through another person" (Vygotsky, 2007, p. 20). It is also noteworthy to point out the interinfluence during social exchanges where child is considered an active participant (Kuchirko, Tafuro, & Tamis-LeMonda, 2017;Martins & Monteiro, 2017;Salomão, 2010).…”