Mothers' labeling responses to infants' gestures predict vocabulary outcomes
Abstract
Twenty-nine infants aged 1;1 and their mothers were videotaped while interacting with toys for 18 minutes. Six experimental stimuli were presented to elicit infant communicative bids in two communicative intent contexts – proto-declarative and proto-imperative. Mothers' verbal responses to infants' gestural and non-gestural communicative bids were coded for object and action labels. Relations between maternal labeling responses and infants' vocabularies at 1;1 and 1;5 were examined. Mothers' labeling responses to infants' gestural communicative bids were concurrently and predictively related to infants' vocabularies, whereas responses to non-gestural communicative bids were not. Mothers' object labeling following gestures in the proto-declarative context mediated the association from infants' gesturing in the proto-declarative context to concurrent noun lexicons and was the strongest predictor of subsequent noun lexicons. Mothers' action labeling after infants' gestural bids in the proto-imperative context predicted infants' acquisition of action words at 1;5. Findings show that mothers' responsive labeling explain specific relations between infants' gestures and their vocabulary development.
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Caregivers' immediate responses to infants' communicative behaviors are related to children's vocabulary development.
“Research shows that caregivers' immediate responses to infants' communicative behaviors are related to children's vocabulary development (e.g., Donnellan et al., 2019; McGillion et al., 2013; Olson & Masur, 2015; Wu & Gros‐Louis, 2014).”
From The role of dyadic combinations of infants' behaviors and caregivers' verbal and multimodal responses in predicting vocabulary outcomes (2025) · cites this paper as Olson & Masur, 2015
Caregivers' verbal labeling responses to infants' gestures completely mediated the relationship between infants' gestures and their vocabulary outcomes.
“Olson and Masur (2015) demonstrated that caregivers' verbal labeling responses to infants' gestures completely mediated the relationship between infants' gestures and their vocabulary outcomes.”
From The role of dyadic combinations of infants' behaviors and caregivers' verbal and multimodal responses in predicting vocabulary outcomes (2025) · cites this paper as Olson and Masur (2015)
Previous studies examining the link between caregivers' responses and children's vocabulary outcomes typically focused on caregivers' verbal responses.
“Despite the robust evidence of the facilitative role of nonverbal behaviors, previous studies examining the link between caregivers' responses and children's vocabulary outcomes typically focused on caregivers' verbal responses (e.g., Donnellan et al., 2019; McGillion et al., 2013; Olson & Masur, 2015; Wu & Gros‐Louis, 2014).”
From The role of dyadic combinations of infants' behaviors and caregivers' verbal and multimodal responses in predicting vocabulary outcomes (2025) · cites this paper as Olson & Masur, 2015
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Show, give, and point gestures across infancy differentially predict language development.
Choi, B., Wei, R., & Rowe, M. L. (2021) · Developmental Psychology · doi:10.1037/dev0001195 · Cited by 76 · see citing works
van der Klis, A., Adriaans, F., & Kager, R. (2023) · Infant Behavior and Development · doi:10.1016/j.infbeh.2023.101828 · Cited by 20 · see citing works
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“Research shows that caregivers' immediate responses to infants' communicative behaviors are related to children's vocabulary development (e.g., Donnellan et al., 2019; McGillion et al., 2013; Olson & Masur, 2015; Wu & Gros‐Louis, 2014).”
- Authors
- OLSON, J., & MASUR, E. F.
- Affiliations
- Northern Illinois University (US)
- Corresponding author
- OLSON, JANET
- ORCID
- OLSON, JANET
- Venue
- Journal of Child Language
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 2015-02-03
- Volume
- 42
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 1289-1311
- ISSN
- 0305-0009 (ISSN-L)
- 1469-7602
- OpenAlex
- W2165021165
- Cited by
- 52
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 2
- FWCI
- 8.43
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Child Language (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- 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 › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Hearing Impairment and Communication
- Keywords
- infant gestures, vocabulary development, object marking, communicative intention, mother-infant interaction
- MeSH terms
- Female, Gestures, Humans, Infant, Language Development, Male, Mother-Child Relations, Vocabulary, Infant Behavior
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