Developmental Pathways Between Infant Gestures and Symbolic Actions, and Children’s Communicative Skills at Age 5: Findings From the All Our Families Pregnancy Cohort

Using data from the All Our Families study, a longitudinal study of 1992 mother‐child dyads in Canada (47.7% female; 81.9% White), we examined the developmental pathways between infant gestures and symbolic actions and communicative skills at age 5. Communicative gestures at age 12 months (e.g., poi...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
Veröffentlicht in:Child development 2021-05, Vol.92 (3), p.799-810
Hauptverfasser: Morin‐Lessard, Elizabeth, Hentges, Rochelle F., Tough, Suzanne C., Graham, Susan A.
Format: Artikel
Sprache:eng
Schlagworte:
Online-Zugang:Volltext
Tags: Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:Using data from the All Our Families study, a longitudinal study of 1992 mother‐child dyads in Canada (47.7% female; 81.9% White), we examined the developmental pathways between infant gestures and symbolic actions and communicative skills at age 5. Communicative gestures at age 12 months (e.g., pointing, nodding head “yes”), obtained via parental report, predicted stronger general communicative skills at age 5 years. Moreover, greater use of symbolic actions (e.g., “feeding” a stuffed animal with a bottle) indirectly predicted increased communicative skills at age 5 via increased productive vocabulary at 24 months. These pathways support the hypothesis that children’s communicative skills during the transition to kindergarten emerge from a chain of developmental abilities starting with gestures and symbolic actions during infancy.
ISSN:0009-3920
1467-8624
DOI:10.1111/cdev.13567