Maternal mental state talk and infants' early gestural communication.
Twenty-four infants were tested monthly for the production of imperative and declarative gestures between 0 ; 9 and 1 ; 3 and concurrent mother-infant free-play sessions were conducted at 0 ; 9, 1 ; 0 and 1 ; 3 (Carpenter, Nagell & Tomasello, 1998). Free-play transcripts were subsequently coded for maternal talk about mental states. Results revealed that the earlier infants produced imperative gestures, the more frequently their mothers made reference to the infants' own volitional states (want, try, need, etc.) at 1 ; 3. The same relation also emerged using maternal reports of their infants' gestural communication on a standard language development measure. These results indicate that mothers' talk about desires and intentions is linked to their infants' early developing communicative competence.
Slaughter
Virginia
V
The University of Queensland, Australia, School of Psychology, Brisbane 4072, Australia.vps@psy.uq.edu.au
Peterson
Candida C
CC
Carpenter
Malinda
M
D000367:Age Factors; D003071:Cognition; D005260:Female; D005868:Gestures; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008606:Mental Processes; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology*; D010988:Play and Playthings; D013060:Speech; D013997:Time Factors; D014836:Volition