Abstract

The development of gestural communication has been investigated in two groups of infants, sampled from a larger corpus of infants whose vocabulary development was investigated from 18 to 30 months of age. The first group (late talkers) comprised infants who at 24 months of age produced less than 50 words or did not produced any word combinations. The second group comprised age-matched subjects with a vocabulary size larger than 50 words. Infants have been videorecorded during play sessions with mothers and their production of pointing, giving, showing and referential gestured at 20 and 24 months of age have been compared. Moreover the combination of gestures with gaze to mothers have been analysed too. Results showed that at 20, but not at 24 months of age, late talker infants produced less pointing, less referential gestures and less combination of pointing and gaze toward mother. These variables are also significantly related to vocabulary size at 30 months of age.