Infants’ behaviours elicit different verbal, nonverbal, and multimodal responses from caregivers during early play
Open accessAbstract
Caregivers use a range of verbal and nonverbal behaviours when responding to their infants. Previous studies have typically focused on the role of the caregiver in providing verbal responses, while communication is inherently multimodal (involving audio and visual information) and bidirectional (exchange of information between infant and caregiver). In this paper, we present a comprehensive study of caregivers' verbal, nonverbal, and multimodal responses to 10-month-old infants' vocalisations and gestures during free play. A new coding scheme was used to annotate 2036 infant vocalisations and gestures of which 87.1 % received a caregiver response. Most caregiver responses were verbal, but 39.7 % of all responses were multimodal. We also examined whether different infant behaviours elicited different responses from caregivers. Infant bimodal (i.e., vocal-gestural combination) behaviours elicited high rates of verbal responses and high rates of multimodal responses, while infant gestures elicited high rates of nonverbal responses. We also found that the types of verbal and nonverbal responses differed as a function of infant behaviour. The results indicate that infants influence the rates and types of responses they receive from caregivers. When examining caregiver-child interactions, analysing caregivers' verbal responses alone undermines the multimodal richness and bidirectionality of early communication.
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Mothers respond more often to infants' gestural than non‐gestural communicative behaviors.
“Mothers respond more often to infants' gestural than non‐gestural communicative behaviors (Olson & Masur, 2013; van der Klis et al., 2023).”
From The role of dyadic combinations of infants' behaviors and caregivers' verbal and multimodal responses in predicting vocabulary outcomes (2025) · cites this paper as van der Klis et al., 2023
9‐ to 11‐month‐old infants' gives elicited more multimodal (verbal + nonverbal) responses from caregivers, while infants' points elicited more verbal responses from caregivers.
“In a previous study, we found that 9‐ to 11‐month‐old infants' gives elicited more multimodal (verbal + nonverbal) responses from caregivers, while infants' points elicited more verbal responses from caregivers (van der Klis et al., 2023).”
From The role of dyadic combinations of infants' behaviors and caregivers' verbal and multimodal responses in predicting vocabulary outcomes (2025) · cites this paper as van der Klis et al., 2023
Infants' gives tend to elicit higher proportions of multimodal responses from caregivers compared to other gestures.
“Infants' gives tend to elicit higher proportions of multimodal responses from caregivers compared to other gestures (van der Klis et al., 2023).”
From The role of dyadic combinations of infants' behaviors and caregivers' verbal and multimodal responses in predicting vocabulary outcomes (2025) · cites this paper as van der Klis et al., 2023
Caregivers' responsiveness will be influenced by differences in infants' behaviors.
“Subsequently, caregivers' responsiveness will be influenced by differences in infants' behaviors (van der Klis et al., 2023).”
From The role of dyadic combinations of infants' behaviors and caregivers' verbal and multimodal responses in predicting vocabulary outcomes (2025) · cites this paper as van der Klis et al., 2023
Caregivers do not often give nonverbal responses without a verbal component.
“Caregivers' do not often give nonverbal responses without a verbal component (see van der Klis et al., 2023).”
From The role of dyadic combinations of infants' behaviors and caregivers' verbal and multimodal responses in predicting vocabulary outcomes (2025) · cites this paper as van der Klis et al., 2023
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- Authors
- van der Klis, A., Adriaans, F., & Kager, R.
- Affiliations
- Utrecht University (NL)
- Venue
- Infant Behavior and Development
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2023-05
- Volume
- 71
- Pages
- 101828
- ISSN
- 0163-6383 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4321599126
- Cited by
- 20
- References
- 52
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 1 · 2016: 1
- FWCI
- 9.24
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Infant Behavior and Development (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Utrecht University Repository (Utrecht University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies
- Keywords
- caregiver-infant interaction, caregiver responses, multimodal communication, nonverbal communication, verbal responses, infant vocalizations, infant gestures, early communication, free play, 10-month-old infants
- MeSH terms
- Gestures, Humans, Infant, Language Development, Caregivers, Infant Behavior
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