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Cited by 76Language Development and DisordersChild and Animal Learning DevelopmentHearing Impairment and Communication

Show, give, and point gestures across infancy differentially predict language development.

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Choi, Boin, Wei, Ran, Rowe, Meredith L.·2021·Developmental Psychology
DOI 10.1037/dev0001195PMC PMC8386023
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Abstract

It is well established that deictic gestures, especially pointing, play an important role in children's language development. However, recent evidence suggests that other types of deictic gestures, specifically show and give gestures, emerge before pointing and are associated with later pointing. In the present study, we examined the development of show, give, and point gestures in a sample of 47 infants followed longitudinally from 10 to 16 months of age and asked whether there are certain ages during which different gestures are more or less predictive of language skills at 18 months. We also explored whether parents' responses vary as a function of child gesture types. Child gestures and parent responses were reliably coded from videotaped sessions of parent-child interactions. Language skills were measured at 18 months using standardized (Mullen Scales of Early Learning) and parent report (MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory) measures. We found that at 10 months, show+give gestures were a better predictor of 18-month language skills than pointing gestures were, yet at 14 months, pointing gestures were a better predictor of 18-month language skills than show+give gestures. By 16 months, children's use of speech in the interaction, not gesture, best predicted 18-month language skills. Parents responded to a higher proportion of shows+gives than to points at 10 months. These results demonstrate that different types of deictic gestures provide a window into language development at different points across infancy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

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  • Shows + gives are better predictors of children's later vocabulary skills than points when measured early from 10 to 12 months of age.

    “and better predictors of children's later vocabulary skills than points when measured early from 10 to 12 months of age (Choi et al., 2021; Donnellan et al., 2019).”

    From The role of dyadic combinations of infants' behaviors and caregivers' verbal and multimodal responses in predicting vocabulary outcomes (2025) · cites this paper as Choi et al., 2021

    The Discussion says shows+gives at 10 months best predicted later language, whereas points were better predictors at 14 months. But the Results (Descriptive Statistics and Bivariate Correlations) say the relationship between shows+gives and language at 18 months was no longer evident by 12 months, so the claimed 10-to-12-month range is not fully supported. (LLM, conf=0.90)

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  • For 10-month-olds, shows + gives is a better predictor of children's later vocabulary skills than points, but shows + gives was not a significant predictor anymore by 12 months; only from 14 months onwards, infants' points became a significant predictor.

    “Recently, Choi et al. (2021) found that for 10‐month‐olds, shows + gives is a better predictor of children's later vocabulary skills than points, but shows + gives was not a significant predictor anymore by 12 months. Only from 14 months onwards, infants' points became a significant predictor.”

    From The role of dyadic combinations of infants' behaviors and caregivers' verbal and multimodal responses in predicting vocabulary outcomes (2025) · cites this paper as Choi et al. (2021)

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    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • Children's shows + gives may be precursors to points.

    “studies suggest that children's shows + gives (i.e., a combined category including both showing and giving gestures) may be precursors to points (Cameron‐Faulkner et al., 2015; Choi et al., 2021)”

    From The role of dyadic combinations of infants' behaviors and caregivers' verbal and multimodal responses in predicting vocabulary outcomes (2025) · cites this paper as Choi et al., 2021

  • Only infants' shows + gives at 10 months could predict children's vocabulary outcomes at 18 months.

    “They found that caregivers respond more often to infants' shows + gives than infants' points when the infants were 10 months of age, and only infants' shows + gives at 10 months could predict children's vocabulary outcomes at 18 months.”

    From The role of dyadic combinations of infants' behaviors and caregivers' verbal and multimodal responses in predicting vocabulary outcomes (2025) · cites this paper as Choi et al. (2021)

  • Caregivers respond more often to infants' shows + gives than infants' points when the infants were 10 months of age.

    “They found that caregivers respond more often to infants' shows + gives than infants' points when the infants were 10 months of age, and only infants' shows + gives at 10 months could predict children's vocabulary outcomes at 18 months.”

    From The role of dyadic combinations of infants' behaviors and caregivers' verbal and multimodal responses in predicting vocabulary outcomes (2025) · cites this paper as Choi et al. (2021)

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Research works printed but not linked: 6

  1. Bates E, Benigni L, Bretherton I, Camaioni L, & Volterra V (1979). Cognition and communication from nine to thirteen months: Correlational findings. In The emergence of symbols: Cognition and communication in infancy (pp. 69– 140). Academic Press.
  2. Bates E (1976). Language and Context: The Acquisition of Pragmatics. New York, NY: Academic Press.
  3. Bates Elizabeth, Camaioni L, & Volterra V (1975). The acquisition of performatives prior to speech. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly of Behavior and Development, 21(3), 205– 226.
  4. Clements C, & Chawarska K (2010). Beyond pointing: Development of the 'showing' gesture in children with autism spectrum disorders. Yale Review of Undergraduate Research in Psychology, 2, 1– 11.
  5. MacWhinney B (2000). The CHILDES Project: Tools for analyzing talk. (3rd ed.). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
  6. Vogt P, & Mastin JD (2013). Rural and urban differences in language socialization and early vocabulary development in Mozambique. Proceedings of the 35th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 3787– 3792.

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Authors
Choi, B., Wei, R., & Rowe, M. L.
Affiliations
  • Boston Children's Hospital (US)
  • Harvard University (US)
ORCID
Venue
Developmental Psychology
Publisher
American Psychological Association (APA)
Published
2021-06
Volume
57
Issue
6
Pages
851-862
ISSN
  • 0012-1649 (ISSN-L)
  • 1939-0599
DOI
10.1037/dev0001195
PMC
PMC8386023
OpenAlex
W3194728950
Semantic Scholar
f3d74c8255bb35dd04f64fc9fcf2488868aecbef
Cited by
76
References
29
Citations by year
2026: 14 · 2025: 26 · 2024: 16 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 7 · 2016: 1
FWCI
12.47
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Developmental Psychology (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R21HD078771)
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
pointing gestures, infant language development, parent-child interaction, infant speech, early childhood language skills
MeSH terms
Gestures, Humans, Infant, Language Development, Learning, Parent-Child Relations, Speech

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