Most language use is displaced, referring to past, future, or hypothetical events, posing the challenge of how children learn what words refer to when the referent is not physically available. One possibility is that iconic cues that imagistically evoke properties of absent referents support learning when referents are displaced. In an…

Social-communication differences are a robust and defining feature of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) but identifying early points of divergence in infancy has been a challenge. The current study examines social communication in 9- to 12-month-old infants who develop ASD (N = 30; 23% female; 70% white) compared to typically developing (TD) infants…

Naturalistic studies show that children can create language-like communication systems in the absence of conventional language. However, experimental evidence is mixed. We address this discrepancy using an experimental paradigm that simulates naturalistic sign creation. Specifically, we tested if a sample of 6- to 12-year-old children (52 girls…

When referring to objects, adults package words, sentences, and gestures in ways that shape children's learning. Here, to understand how continuity of reference shapes word learning, an adult taught new words to 4-year-old children (N = 120) using either clusters of references to the same object or no sequential references to each object. In three…

A child's first words mark the emergence of a uniquely human ability. Theories of the developmental steps that pave the way for word production have proposed that either vocal or gestural precursors are key. These accounts were tested by assessing the developmental synchrony in the onset of babbling, pointing, and word production for 46 infants…

Adults recognize emotions conveyed by bodies with comparable accuracy to facial emotions. However, no prior study has explored infants' perception of body emotions. In Experiment 1, 6.5-month-olds (n = 32) preferred happy over neutral actions of actors with covered faces in upright but not inverted silent videos. In Experiment 2, infants…

Using an epidemiological sample (N = 1,117) and a prospective longitudinal design, this study tested the direct and indirect effects of preverbal and verbal communication (15 months to 3 years) on executive function (EF) at age 4 years. Results indicated that whereas gestures (15 months), as well as language (2 and 3 years), were correlated with…

Longitudinal results for a randomized-controlled trial (RCT) assessing the impact of increasing preschoolers' attention to print during reading are reported. Four-year-old children (N = 550) in 85 classrooms experienced a 30-week shared reading program implemented by their teachers. Children in experimental classrooms experienced shared-book…

Examined the extent to which mothers synchronize their verbal references to objects with other, nonverbal events when addressing children in the first two years of life. Forty-two mothers and their infants (age 11, 14, and 24 months) were observed in a joint play situation involving a number of toys. (Author/JMB)

Social play emerged earlier than social pretend play with a similar structure; the incidence of social pretend play increased with age. Four strategies for integrating pretense into social play were isolated; among them, verbal recruitment and "join" were found to be more effective than imitation or nonverbal recruitment. (Author/RH)

Investigates vocal and nonvocal communication patterns between three groups of mother-infant pairs that include homemakers who prefer not to work, homemakers who prefer to work, and working mothers. (SS)

Describes the interactions of 1five mothers inexperienced with deaf people and a deaf five-year-old, a hearing two-year-old and a hearing four and one-half-year-old. The women had fewer successful initiations and shorter interactions with deaf children. Modifications in their communication, especially in relation to "motherese," were…

Preschool children in a free-play situation experienced one of two training sequences: saying then doing, or doing then saying. The effect of training on the development of a correspondence between children's verbal and nonverbal behaviors was examined. The say-do sequence produced higher levels of correspondence. (ST)

First-grade boys (N=260) were classified according to response style on a continuum of reflectivity-impulsivity using Kagan's Matching Familiar Figures Test. For all groups, performances were poorest under reward conditions and better under the punishment and reward plus punishment conditions. (ST)

The effects of child deafness on mother-child interaction were investigated by observing mother-child dyads in free-play situations. Subjects were six deaf child/hearing mother pairs and six normal hearing pairs. All children were between 13.2 and 29.2 months of age. (Author/MP)