title: Communication in the second and third year of life: Relationships between nonverbal social skills and language.
abstract: We aimed to investigate developmental continuities between a range of early social and communicative abilities (including gestural communication) and language acquisition in children aged between 11 and 41 months. Initiation of joint attention and imitation were strongly correlated to language comprehension and production. Moreover, the analysis of different communicative gestures revealed significant relationships between language development and the production of symbolic gestures, declarative pointing (declarative informative pointing in particular), and head nodding. Other gestures such as imperative pointing, showing, and head shaking were not found to correlate with language level. Our results also suggest that distinct processes are involved in the development of language comprehension and production, and highlight the importance of considering various characteristics of children's early communicative skills.
authors.affiliation: CLLE, Toulouse University, CNRS, UT2J, 5 Allées Antonio Machado, 31058 Toulouse Cedex 9, France. Electronic address: helene.cochet@univ-tlse2.fr.
authors.forename: Hélène
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Cochet
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology & Neuroscience, Centre for Social Learning & Cognitive Evolution, St Andrews, United Kingdom. Electronic address: rwb@st-andrews.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Richard W
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Byrne
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003142:Communication; D005260:Female; D005868:Gestures; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007804:Language Development; D008297:Male; D009633:Nonverbal Communication; D002666:Psychology, Child; D066107:Social Skills
keywords: Development of communication; Gestures; Language; Toddlers