This study examined how change occurs in infant gestural communication. Five infants were videotaped once a week from 10 to 12 months and twice a week from 12 to 15 months during play sessions with their mothers in a laboratory playroom. These sessions consisted of 10 minutes of a structured play context in which infants were seated at a table at…

This paper discusses some expressive units of behavior which appear to have a widespread geographical distribution (in both morphology and significance); have a precocious ontogeny in infancy and childhood; and are used in appropriate social psychological settings even by congenitally blind, deaf-blind, and multiply handicapped youngsters.…

Considers the bases of criticism of parent report as an index of their children's behavioral development and ways in which problems associated with parent report were addressed in the construction of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories (CDIs). Examines the nature of responses elicited from parents as they complete the CDIs. (BC)

In order to investigate developmental trends in the sex differences of two dimensions of proxemic behavior, distance and shoulder orientation, 406 elementary and junior high school students were studied while interacting in same-sex and heterosexual pairs. After engaging in discussion for one minute, the pairs were asked to stop and hold still…

Gestural behavior between mothers and young children was hypothesized to be important in the acquisition of communicative competence. It was presumed that a typology of gestural function could assess non-verbal behavior. Data consisted of sound film samples of feeding and bathing events of three subject pairs. Initially the children ranged in age…

Information gathered from one and a half years of interviews with anthropologists, psychologists, ethologists, sociologists, and psychiatrists provides the source of answers for the questions this book addresses: How much do we communicate with words, and how much with gestures, postures, and movement? What can we learn from the study of nonverbal…