University of Amsterdam
Graduate School of Childhood Development and Education
In cooperation with:
University of Chieti Pescara
MASTER
Orthopedagogy
Master Thesis 2014
Name student: H.M. van Hoeven Student account: 6365914/10104690
Subject: Cross-cultural Research of the Pointing Gesture in Twelve Months Old Italian and Dutch infants’.
Allocation to department: Developmental and Educational Problems Supervisor: Dr. C. Colonnesi and Dr. P. Perucchini
Second reviewer: Dr. M. Majdandžić Amsterdam, May 2014
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my supervisor, Cristina Colonnesi for her continual support and advice throughout this work. Cristina’s wisdom, enthusiasm and kindness never ceased to impress and educate me. I also would like to thank Cristina for providing some very useful feedback, and for also making all of the ‘pointing data’ available to me.
I would also like to thank Paola Perucchini, my co-supervisor from the University of Chieti. Paola accompanied me on numerous observing trials in which she provided some very useful comments. Furthermore, I would like to thank Tiziana Aureli for providing some very thoughtful comments, and for also making all of her ‘pointing data’ available to me. I also am grateful to Paola and Tiziana for giving me the opportunity to do research at the University of Chieti in Italy. Without them this project could not have been completed.
I would like to acknowledge the Erasmus Program Scholarships; for such exceptional opportunity to live and study abroad. Finally I would like express my love and appreciation to my family for supporting all my endeavors.
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Index
Abstract ... 4
1. Introduction ... 5
2. Theoretical framework………...7
2.1 Pointing gesture development in declarative comprehension and – production………...7
2.2 Gender differences in declarative comprehension and – production ... 9
2.3 Cultural influences ... 10
2.4 Present study... 12
3. Method ... 13
3.1 Participants ... 13
3.2 Materials and procedure for Italian children ... 13
Materials ... 13
Procedure ... 14
3.3 Materials and procedure for Dutch children ... 15
Materials ... 15
Procedure ... 16
3.4 Coding pointing behaviours ... 17
3.5 Reliability ... 18
3.6 Data analysis... 19
4.Results ... 19
4.1 Analyses for the development of production and comprehension of declarative pointing ... 20
4.2 Analyses for extra communicative behaviors in comprehension and production of declarative pointing ... 24
5. Discussion/Conclusion ... 27
5.1 Comprehension and production of the declarative pointing ... 27
5.2 Gender difference in declarative pointing ... 28
5.3 Communicative behaviors in declarative pointing contexts ... 29
5.4 Declarative pointing in Italian and Dutch infants ... 30
5.5 Limitations and suggestions for future research ... 32
References ... 33
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Abstract
Declarative pointing is a species-specific and universal human gesture, which can be seen as one of the most important milestones in early social-cognitive and language development during infancy. Despite the large number of studies on pointing, cultural influences are only partially explored (Salomo & Liszkowski, 2013). The main aim of this study is to investigate if the ‘gesture-richness’ of a culture influences the performance on declarative pointing for Italian children compared to Dutch children. Ninety Italian (47 girls) and ninety-one Dutch (47 girls) children participated in an experimental paradigm (Camaioni et al., 2004) where production and comprehension of declarative pointing was elicited. Results showed that Italian children produce and comprehend declarative pointing better than Dutch children. Italian boys displayed more declarative production than -girls. Nevertheless, Italian girls displayed more comprehension than –boys. No gender differences were found for Dutch children. The results suggest that socio-cultural environment structure the ontogeny of communication from infancy.
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1. Introduction
Pointing is a human and universal gesture which set the base for the socio-communicative development and usage of human gestural communication before language existed (Kita, 2003; Liszkowski,Brown, Callaghan, Takada, & de Vos, 2012). Index-finger pointing is apparently unique to humans (Masataka, 2003); it is primordial in ontogeny and one of the first versatile communicative devices that an infant acquires (Kita, 2003). There is a large variation in the age of onset; children start to produce this gesture between 7 and 15 months, with a mean age around 11–12 months (Camaioni, Perucchini, Bellagamba, & Colonnesi, 2004; Carpenter, Nagell, & Tomasello, 1998).
Infants’ pointing gestures could be classified according to the nature of purposes (Couchet & Vauclair, 2010). The pointing ability has two main motives (Bates, Camaioni, & Volterra, 1975). Imperative pointing aims to use the adult as a tool to get an object. In
declarative pointing, the infant uses the object as a tool to get the adult’s attention (Colonnesi,
Stams, Koster, & Noom, 2010), and involve the goal of sharing interest in a specific referent with their caregiver (Liszkowski, Carpenter, Henning, Striano, & Tomasello, 2004). According to Tomasello, Carpenter, and Liszkowski (2007) infants’ from 12 to 14 months of age, even before language acquisition, participate in the species-unique activity of human cooperative communication. In this line, infants declarative pointing can be seen as one of the most important milestones in early social-cognitive and language development (Liszkowski & Tomasello, 2011). Camaioni et al. (2004) examined 12-months-old children and found that the production of declarative pointing was strongly related to the understanding of adults’ intentions. Declarative pointing implies some knowledge of psychological processes in humans and shows deliberate use of joint attention (Franco & Butterworth, 1996). Pointing facilitates joint attention (Callaghan et al., 2011) and children aged 12 months begin to show a more sophisticated bidirectional understanding of pointing (Behne, Liszkowski, Carpenter, & Tomasello, 2012). It has been suggested that declarative pointing is a precursor for children's later theory of minds (TOM) understanding (Baron-Cohen, 1991; Camaioni, 1997; Liszkowski et al., 2004; Liszkowski, 2013) and cooperation abilities (Liszkowski, 2005).
Furthermore, declarative pointing may include complex social and cognitive skills which are necessary for the development of speech (Liszkowski, 2005). In a longitudinal study, Mundy et al. (2007) used a 20-min. assessment (ESCS) to measure the development of different dimensions of nonverbal communication. Infants were presented with a series of toys and opportunities to play a turn-taking game with a toy-car or ball. In addition, the
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experimenter also requested toys from the infant throughout the assessment. One of the measuring variables in the ESCS was Responding of Joint Attention (RJA). RJA is the receptive form and refers to infants' ability to follow the direction of the gaze and gestures of the experimenter in order to share a common point of reference. Furthermore, the mean for the 24-months-old children language scores consists of the results of the following tests: Reynell Receptive Language, Reynell Expressive Language and Mc Arthur Communication Development Inventory. They found that the responding of joint attention (RJA) in 12-months-old children predicted 24-12-months-old-children language scores. In addition, a meta-analysis by Colonnesi et al. (2010) found a relation between pointing with a declarative motive and language development. They concluded that declarative pointing is an important joint-attention behavior associated with the acquisition of language.
Index-finger pointing is one of the first important communicative signs that infants understand in two-way interactions between humans (Liszkowski & Tomasello, 2011), and it is used by children in various socio-cultural environments as a form of communication (Liszkowski et al., 2012).
No research has been done addressing cultural variations in the onset of the pointing gesture; it has remained unclear whether sociocultural differences already impact the early prelinguistic emergence of declarative pointing (Salomo & Liszkowski, 2013). Therefore, little is known about the socio-cultural perspective; what is the influence of the environment in which infants are raised on the onset of the pointing gesture. Although pointing seems to be present in all cultures, there is evidence of some variation in the implementation of pointing across various environments. For example, the act of pointing is not represented by the index finger in all cultures. There may be some variations of form (e.g., in some cultures the norm is lip- or chin-pointing) but the basic interpersonal function of directing someone's attention to an object appears to be universal (Kita, 2003). In (indigenous) communities where lip pointing is predominant, hand and finger points are not ruled out, which strongly indicates independent development (Wilkins, 2003).
A positive relationship has been found between parental gesture production and the amount of children’s use of gesture (Iverson, Capirci, Longobardi, & Caselli, 1999; Rowe, Özçaliskan, & Goldin-Meadow, 2008; Liszkowski & Tomasello, 2011). Differences have also been found in the act of pointing by children from distinct socio-cultural backgrounds. Salomo and Liszkowski (2013) found that at the age of 11 months Chinese and Dutch children are more likely to display the pointing gesture than children living in Mexico. This suggests
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that children’s use of gestures reflects the environment in which they are raised and the input from their parents.
In sum, declarative pointing is the first and one of the most important steps in social-cognitive and language development of children. Beside, declarative pointing could vary in different cultures due to the difference in intention in the communication and in style of language. The aim of the present study was to compare children’s production and comprehension of the declarative pointing gesture in two Western cultures: the Italian and Dutch culture. By examining cross-cultural data, we expect to arrive at a better understanding of the role and influence of environment in the acquisition of early social cognitive understanding.
2. Theoretical Framework
2.1 Pointing gesture development in declarative comprehension and - production
Index-finger pointing, which often co-occurs with speech, is featured by an arm and index-finger extended in the direction of an attractive object, with the other index-fingers curled under the hand and the thumb held down and to the side (Masataka, 2003). In fact, the index finger derives its name from the Latin word index, which comes from the same Latin source as indicate. Indicating has fundamentally to do with creating indexes for things (Clark, 2003).
Pointing the index finger is probably a species-specific behavior in humans in order to communicate before the onset of language, in the absence of language or when language has to be reinforced by gestures (Povinelli & Davis, 1994). Declarative pointing is a unique human form of communication (Camaioni, 1997). Lyn, Russell and Hopkins (2010) demonstrated that environmental factors, particularly access to a sociolinguistically rich environment, directly influence great apes’ ability to comprehend declarative gestures. However, no great apes’ point declaratively ever (Tomasello, 2008).
Tomasello and Camaioni (1997) explain that declarative gestures rely on an understanding of others as possessing a psychological dimension (that is, the capacity to have intentional and attentional relations to the world that may be shared by others). Moreover, in declarative pointing the child seeks to direct the other’s attention (for its own sake) to the object. Beside, pointing can be described as a deictic gesture; it indicates referents in the immediate environment. It is used to reorient the attention of another person so that an object becomes the shared focus of attention (Butterworth, 2003). Pointing differs from other gestures because it is not a conventionalized symbol gesture; it depends on the context in
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which the gesture is given. Thereby, pointing can convey a wide variety of meanings by saying, in effect, "If you look over there, you'll know what I mean" (Tomasello et al., 2007). During adulthood the use of the pointing gesture remains but it obtains a different function. Adults’ pointing is intended to reinforce the discourse, generally by indicating the referent of a deictic word, whereas infants’ pointing is the main component of their communicative signal (Couchet & Vauclair, 2010).
Since children already begin to start pointing for other humans around 12 months, Behne et al. (2012) studied in what extent children at this age already comprehend the communicative function of pointing. They found that children succeeded in both the comprehension and production of the task, suggesting that at least some 12-month-old children already possess a bidirectional or agent-neutral understanding of communicative pointing. They seem to understand the function of the gesture from an agent-neutral point of view and are thus able to act appropriate in both the role of communicator and recipient. Tomasello et al. (2007) suggest a stronger social-cognitive view of the pointing gesture, also referred to as the “rich interpretation” of the pointing gesture function. According to the rich interpretation, already at the age of 12 months the pointing gesture has the function of influencing others’ mental and intentional states.
Although there is evidence that pointing comprehension and pointing production are positively related to each other (Carpenter et al., 1998; Colonnesi, Rieffe, Koops, & Perucchini, 2008; Behne et al., 2012), conflicting results exist ascertaining which of these appears first (Carpenter et al., 1998; Camaioni et al., 2004). Several studies have shown comprehension appearing before production (Bruner, 1983; Behne et al., 2012; Carpenter et al., 1998; Leung & Rheingold, 1981), whereas other studies have found production to emerge before comprehension (Desrochers, Morissette, & Ricard, 1995; Murphy & Messer, 1977).
Research on the pointing gesture started in the mid-1960s (Bates et al., 1975; Werner & Kaplan, 1963). There are different theoretical hypotheses about the ontology of the pointing gesturers and there are two types of traditional views of the origin of pointing. First, Werner and Kaplan (1963) declare pointing as a communicative gesture from the outset. In this theory it is often assumed that pointing is initially performed for the self and becomes ritualized through social interaction until it serves the purpose of social communication. They provided evidence for the assumption that pointing appears often in association with the first demonstrative vocalizations, which means, with vocal reference. Because of this, the pointing gesture is supposed to be the first step toward true symbolization (Camaioni, 1997; Colonnesi et al., 2010).
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Pointing is a good predictor of word acquisition (Bates, Benigni, Bretherton, Camaioni, & Volterra, 1979; Camaioni, Castelli, Longobardi, & Volterra, 1991), and predicts later vocabulary (Iverson & Goldin-Meadow, 2005; Özçaliskan & Goldin-Meadow, 2005). Children begin to produce two-word sentences at approximately 18 months of age. However, they are able to produce isolated words at 12 months (Goldin-Meadow & Butcher, 2003). Near the end of the first year children begin to communicate intentionally, mainly through gestures and often accompanied by vocalizations. The onset of these types of gesture and speech combinations have been found to precede, and predict, the onset of two-word utterances in English-learning (Goldin-Meadow & Butcher, 2003; Iverson & Goldin-Meadow, 2005) as well as Italian-learning (Iverson et al., 2008) and Spanish- learning (Esteve-Gibert & Prieto, 2013) children.
2.2 Gender differences in declarative comprehension and – production
Research on gender differences in declarative pointing is very scarse. In a few studies the results indicate that with respect to the onset age of pointing, girls started pointing slightly before boys (Butterworth & Morissette, 1996; Camaioni et al., 2004). Other studies showed no differences between 12-months-old boys and girls in declarative pointing (Liszkowski et al., 2012; Couchet & Vauclair, 2010).
Infants between 9 and 12 months of age begin to understand persons as intentional agents and this underlies the development of specific joint attentional skills (Tomasello, 1995). Developmental relations are found between the emergence of declarative joint attentional skills and later theory of mind (Kristen, Sodian, Thoermer, & Perst 2011). Lutchmaya and Baron-Cohen (2002) examined if there was a difference between boys and girls creating a social and a non-social context. They investigated if there are sex differences in looking preference for social or non-social stimuli at 12 months of age. In their experiment the stimuli administrated were social and non-social video clips. The social video clips showed a human face and the non-social video clips showed mechanical objects. In Lutchmaya and Baron-Cohen (2002) girls showed significantly higher social preference than boys did. Riso et al. (2010) found a similar gender difference in social behavior in Italian children, aged 8-10 years. That is, parents reported higher levels of pro-social behaviors for their daughters than for their sons measured with the SDQ.
Another reason why girls could be better in declarative pointing than boys; is that declarative pointing has a theoretical and empirical association with later language learning (Tomasello, 2008; Colonnesi et al., 2010). In a longitudinal study Bouchard, Trudeau, Sutton,
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Boudreault, and Deneault (2009) showed that between 8 and 16 months old, girls understand more sentences and produce more words than boys. In addition, between 16 and 30 months, girls produced more words than boys where in their utterances contained more grammatical forms and were more advanced syntactically. A number of explanations have been put forward for gender differences in language development. These include biological differences as well as gender differences in interests and stereotypes, identification and modelling, and learning opportunities (Bornstein, Leach & Haynes, 2004). Even though it is difficult to measure the effects of each of these, a meta-analysis by Leaper, Anderson, and Sanders (1998) found that mothers spoke less to their sons than to their daughters. Furthermore, 12-months-old girls made more eye contact with their mother than boys did (Lutchmaya, Baron– Cohen, & Raggett, 2002). A potential cause of these findings is that the quantity of mother to child speech predicts child vocabulary growth (Huttenlocher, Haight, Bryk, Seltzer, & Lyons, 1991).
In sum, girls may have an advantage in declarative pointing. Several studies showed that girls are favored in their social- and language development. For this reason girls may produce and comprehend the declarative gesture better than boys at the age of 12 months.
2.3 Cultural influences
From early on, children produce index-finger pointing in studies conducted in Western cultures as well as non-Western cultures like Nepal (Lieven & Stoll, 2013), Japan, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia (Liszkowski et al., 2012) Mexico and China (Salomo & Liszkowski, 2013). Although humans point everywhere, we can expect some quantitative and qualitative variation in the development of the pointing gesture in different countries. Different studies found that children of various ages in high-frequency-gesture environments use more gestures compared with children from cultures where gesture use is less common, such as Italian- versus American children (Iverson et al., 2008) and English- versus Turkish children (Ozyürek et al., 2008). Both studies show that Italian- and Turkish children use more gestures than their Western culture counterparts. However, it is still unknown whether pointing emerges as a result of social-cultural influences, or whether it emerges independently and only manifest in interaction (Carpendale & Carpendale, 2010).
Italy is known throughout the world for its ‘gesture-rich’ culture. Italians have traditionally been described as having a rich gesture vocabulary and frequently using gestures in daily communication (Barzini, 1964; Diadori, 1990; Efron, 1941; Kendon 2004; Munari, 1994), a characteristic comparatively less well documented in other cultures. Children are
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exposed to this culture during their interactions with others (Kendon, 2004), and due to this exposure, young Italian children are immersed in the gesture-rich social environment: gestures not only occur frequently in communication, but there is also a large repertoire of culturally-defined representational gestures to which even very young children are exposed (Kendon, 1994, 2004).
Iverson et al. (2008) have examined gesture and speech production in Italian and American children between the onset of first words and the onset of two-word combinations. They found that Italian children conveyed a broad range of meanings via representational gestures, and they produced representational gestures more frequently than the American children. Given the large gesture repertoire of Italian adults, young Italian children might be expected to develop a larger inventory of gestures compared to children from other Western cultures.
In contrast, Dutch culture is not considered a ‘gesture-rich’ culture. There are no studies that compared the Dutch and Italian culture but a few studies compared Italian people with people from Europe, U.S. and Japan. Western Europe is generally considered as ‘non-gesture rich’ in comparison to the Italian culture. Previous studies (Pika, Nicoladis, & Marentette, 2006; Scheflen, 1972) observed that British-Americans do not gesture as broadly as Italian-Americans, due to the fact that gesticulation is regarded as impolite in the British culture. In general, the display of emotions is central to the Italian way of life (Lecce & Hughes, 2010). Additionally, Graham and Argyle (1975) tested whether gesticulation improves the effectiveness of communication. In their study, participants were faced with the task of describing geometric figures to recipients who had to draw the shapes described. Twenty-four English and twenty-four Italian participants took part in this study. All participants described one set of shapes with every gesture they would like to use, and another set without using gestures. It was found that for both English and Italian participants there was some improvement in communication when the gestures were used, but this improvement was significantly more for the Italian- than for the English group. This suggests that Italian people benefit more from the presence of gestures than their English-speaking (British) counterparts.
Research has shown a correlated usage of parent and infant pointing across various cultural settings (Liszkowski & Tomasello, 2011; Liszkowski et al., 2012). Salomo and Liszkowski (2013) studied three different cultures where children were growing up: Yucatec-Mayans (Mexico), Dutch (Netherlands), and Shanghai-Chinese (China). They found differences in the emergence of index pointing between these children. Index-finger pointing
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had emerged in only a few Mayan infants, while it had already emerged in the majority of the Dutch, and almost all Chinese infants.
These studies indicate that the emergence and use of gestures is socially mediated, suggesting that culture plays an important role in producing and comprehending gestures. Gestures seem to play a more important role in the Italian culture compared to the English-speaking world. In our knowledge, no study has investigated the production and the comprehension of the declarative pointing gesture comparing a gesture-rich versus a non-gesture rich culture.
2.4 Present study
The aim of this study is to compare two different populations in declarative comprehension and -production, namely Dutch and Italian children. We used a controlled experimental setting for children aged 12 months because this age is probably the most sensitive moment in the development of the pointing gesture (Camaioni et al., 2004; Carpenter et al., 1998; Masataka, 1996). In this study we examined two different cultures: Italy, which can be described as a ‘gesture-rich’ culture, and the Netherlands, which can be described as a ‘non-gesture rich’ culture. Our hypothesis for this central question is that Italian children will profit from the ‘gesture-richness’ of their culture and so will do better on both declarative trails.
Furthermore, our second hypothesis is that children in both cultures will develop comprehension before production, because declarative production has been linked to understanding others’ intentions (Camaioni, et al., 2004) and so production is the more demanding cognitive complexity (Tomasello & Camaioni, 1997). Our third hypothesis is that girls will do better than boys in declarative comprehension and production because of the underlying motives of declarative pointing in social contexts (Kristen et al., 2011) and in association with language learning (Colonnesi et al., 2010).
Finally, we expect that Italian children will show more additional communicative behaviors in line of the main aim of this study. That means, in addition to comprehending and producing the declarative pointing gesture children also will show other behaviors that characterize communicative behaviors. Liszkowski, Carpenter and Tomasello (2007) consider declarative pointing as a communicative tool whereby infants need an understanding of persons as mental beings and use pro-social motives for interacting with them cooperatively. Beside, production and comprehension of the pointing gesture proved to be equally strongly related to language development (Colonnesi, et al., 2010). In sum, extra communicative behavior will emphasize the social communicative message of pointing and is therefore related to the first
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step in language development. Thus, declarative pointing is a communicative tool in which we will expect that Italian children will show more extra communicative behaviors.
3. Method
3.1 Participants
A sample of ninety-one Dutch children (44 boys and 47 girls) and ninety Italian children (43 boys and 47 girls) participated in the present study. The mean age for the Italian children for the total sample was M = 52.52 weeks (SD = 2.22), for boys M = 52.95 weeks (SD = 1.77) and girls
M = 52.13 weeks (SD = 2.52). In the Dutch sample the mean age for the children for the total
sample was M =53.14 weeks (SD = 3.35), for boys M = 52.77 weeks (SD = 2.12) and girls M = 54.0 weeks (SD = 4.12). Participation in this research was voluntarily and consented by the parents. The children were all healthy and developing normally. The observations were conducted in Italy in 2007, 2008 and 2009, and in the Netherlands in 2008, 2009, and 2010.
The Italian sample is part of a wider longitudinal research project on the communicative and social- cognitive development of children from 3 to 36 months of age. Mothers were recruited in the hospital of Chieti (a town in the middle of Italy, around 56.000 inhabitants) within two days of the baby’s birth and approached to obtain their agreement to participate in this research project. If assenting, all mothers were contacted by phone when the children were approaching their third month of life to schedule the first appointment at the lab. All infants belonged to bi-parental Italian families and were born full-term. None of them had medical complications at birth, had experienced hospitalizations or had been diagnosed for medical or psychological delays/disorders.
The Dutch sample consisted of 91 couples with their 12-month-old first-born infant. The families are part of a larger group of participants recruited from the general population for an ongoing longitudinal study on social development from infancy to middle childhood. Couples expecting their first child were recruited via advertisements in magazines and parenting websites, or via flyers provided by midwives, pregnancy courses and baby shops. Participants provided written informed consent prior to their participation.
3.2 Materials and procedure for Italian children
Materials
In both experiments (comprehension and production) an experimenter administered different stimuli which serve as potential referents. Distal stimuli were used, so that an event occurred
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far from both the experimenter and the child. In the Italian experiment a Winnie de Pooh (ca. 18 cm long) stuffed animal with a triangle hanging under it was used for the production task. In the comprehension task a Walt Disney Aristocats poster (ca. 90 × 60 cm2) was used.
In the Italian sample, there were two experimental conditions used to elicit declarative production and declarative comprehension. These experiments were counterbalanced. During the pointing gesture tasks the child and the experimenter sat diagonally opposite of a table (ca. 130 × 70 cm2), facing each other (Figure 1). A one-way mirror was present behind the experimenter. Behind this one-way mirror a second experimenter control the stimuli in the declarative-production stimuli. On the wall at the left hand side of the experimenter a Walt Disney poster (ca. 68 × 48 cm2) was present. This poster was in view of both the child and the experimenter.
Figure 1. Setting Pointing Gesture in Italy Procedure
The Italian children were individually administered to the experimental paradigm (Camaioni et al., 2004), designed to elicit comprehension and production of declarative pointing, that is, to share with an adult their interest in an object. Each session began with a warm-up period in which the child played with the experimenter until he or she seemed acclimated to the room and the experimenter. During the trials the parent was present.
In the declarative comprehension task, the experimenter would call the name of the child, establish eye contact and then point and look ostensibly to the Disney Poster on the wall. Once pointing had begun she would make a “woeee” sounds. She would occasionally shift her gaze between the stimuli and the child, and pointing would continue for around 10 seconds. This task was repeated twice.
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In the declarative production task the experimenter would start to distract the child with a ring. When she had the attention of the child she would let the ring roll down the table and gave a signal with her hands under the table. Experimenter 2 then reacted and a Winnie the Pooh bear (ca. 18 cm long) with a triangle underneath would start to move and make noise. After around ten seconds the Winnie the Pooh bear would stop moving. The experimenter then said to the child “What happened? and “What have you seen?” This task was repeated twice. In both samples two cameras were used. One camera zoomed in on the child and the other camera filmed the whole room; included stimuli and experimenter.
3.3 Materials and procedure for Dutch children
Materials
Distal stimuli were used, so that an event occurred far from both the experimenter and the child. The stimuli used in the Dutch production tasks were two Bumba puppets (red and yellow, ca. 20 cm. long). Furthermore, the stimuli in the Dutch comprehension tasks were a white and red flashlight.
In the Dutch sample, there were two experimental conditions used to elicit declarative production and declarative comprehension. During the pointing gesture task the child and the experimenter sat at opposite sides of a table (ca. 90 × 60 cm2), facing each other (Figure 2). The mother of the child is sitting behind the child and she is asked not to make contact with the child and to respond in a neutral manner if the child tries to make contact with her. Behind the experimenter a curtain or screen is present (in the child’s view). Behind this curtain a second experimenter presents the stimuli in the declarative-production situation. On the left hand side of the experimenter there was a one-way mirror with lights behind it. This mirror is in view of both the child and the experimenter. In both experiments, these stimuli serve as potential referents.
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Figure 2. Setting Pointing Gesture in the Netherlands
Procedure
Both tasks are an adapted version of the pointing gesture task developed by Camaioni et al. (2004). The task was designed to elicit comprehension and production of declarative pointing. Each session began with a warm-up period in which the child played with the experimenter until he or she seemed acclimated to the room and the experimenter. The declarative comprehension task started with the experimenter who said to the child: “Let see if there is something more beautiful in this room?” When eye contact was established she pointed to the stimuli while saying: “Look! … (Name child).” During this condition the experimenter occasionally shifted her gaze between the stimuli and the child. The experimenter pointed to the flickering light for five seconds when it appeared in the one-way mirror. A white flickering light appeared during the first trial and a red flickering light appeared during the second trial.
The declarative production task consisted of two stimuli; a yellow and a red ‘Bumba’ puppet (ca. 20 cm long). During this task a second experimenter (behind a curtain) showed this puppet for fifteen seconds and moved it back and forth. After each showing, the first researcher (facing the child) would ask: “What do you see?” In both samples two cameras were used. In the production task one camera zoomed in on the child and the other camera filmed the stimuli. In the comprehension task, one camera zoomed in on the child and the other camera filmed the whole room; included stimuli and pointing gesture of the experimenter.
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3.4 Coding pointing behaviours
In the comprehension task, the child was required to follow a point to a visible target (Carpenter et al., 1998; Liszkowski & Tomasello, 2011). The comprehension task had two trails with one stimulus. To count whether the child understood the pointing gesture, the criteria of comprehension were checked. The criteria consisted of two behaviors: when the child looked at the stimulus, this was coded as 1. When the child looked direct back at the experimenter this also was coded as 1. When the child did neither of these it was coded as 0. For each task the criteria were summed. These outcomes were translated in 1 (when a child performed both criteria) or 0 (when a child did one or none criteria). Furthermore, five extra behaviors were coded (see Table 1). When a child showed one or more extra behaviors, this was coded as 1, and the absence of extra behavior as 0. After transforming ‘criteria’ and ‘extra behaviors’ both outcomes were summed and the outcome could have 0, 1 or 2. Finally, these outcomes were transformed for 1 (when a child performed for both outcomes), or 0 (when a child scored for one or no outcomes) for the total score. In order to analyze children’s performance, total scores were used for these tasks to calculate the mean for comprehension.
In production tasks the children’s pointing gestures were coded as intentionally communicative, first as criterion, and then extra communicative behaviors were coded (see Table 1). Pointing was defined as arm and index finger extension in the direction of the stimulus (without touching it) while the remaining fingers were curled lightly or tightly under the hand (Franco & Butterworth, 1996). Any stimulus-directed pointing gesture produced by the child was coded as intentionally communicative when looking at the experimenter’s face occurred within 2 seconds before or after pointing, or when pointing and looking at the experimenter’s face occurred simultaneously (following Camaioni et al., 2004; Franco & Butterworth, 1996). Only one pointing gesture produced by the child was counted in each task.
Children were presented two trails. To see whether the child understood the pointing gesture, the criterion of production was checked. The criterion for the production tasks whether the children’s responses consisted of a pointing gesture produced by the child to the stimuli, wherein the child looked at the experimenter (for, during or after pointing). If the child performed this criterion, it was coded for 1. When the child did not perform this criterion, it was coded for 0. Furthermore, the five extra behaviors (see Table 1) children could show were scored. When a child showed one or more extra behaviors, this was coded for 1 but no extra behaviors had the outcome of 0. Subsequently, ‘criterion’ and ‘transformed extra behaviors’ were added up and thus outcomes could have 0, 1 or 2. Finally, these outcomes were transformed for 1 (when a child performed for both outcomes), or 0 (when a child scored for
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one or no outcomes) for the total score. In order to analyze children’s performance, total scores were used for these tasks to calculate the mean for production.
The extra communicative behaviors were added up for each task. The mean for both trails was calculated and so there were two means; one for extra communicative pointing in declarative production and one for -comprehension.
Table 1.
Criteria- and Extra Behaviors in Declarative Comprehension and - Production.
Declarative Pointing Coding behaviours Declarative comprehension criteria Gaze to the experimenter
Gaze to the stimuli and experimenter Declarative production criteria Production of the pointing gesture Extra behaviors for declarative pointing Smile
Point
Vocalizations of words Shifting
Reproduction
Other behaviors (in text)
Trials were not valid when the child did not respond to the experimenter’s behavior or to the stimulus. Mean percentages of non-valid trial in trial 1 were for production: Italian children 1.1 % and for Dutch children 3.3%. Mean percentages of non-valid trial 2 were for production: Italian children 1.1% and for Dutch children 3.3%. Mean percentages of non-valid trial 1 were for comprehension: Italian children 2.2 % and for Dutch children 4.4%. Mean percentages of non-valid trial 2 were for comprehension: Italian children 1.1% and 4.4% Dutch children. In general, the proportions of non-valid trials were low, especially in production conditions. Non-valid trials, were relatively slightly more frequent in comprehension conditions, which were more demanding for children, especially in the first session because it demanded a sustained orientation toward what the experimenter was doing (Camaioni et al., 2004).
3.5 Reliability
One independent observer coded a random selection of Italian children of 6.67% of the videotaped observations carried out at 12 months (n = 6). The Dutch children were also coded by one independent observer who coded a random selection of 19.78 % (n = 18).
In the pointing task, reliability was assessed for each target behavior. Kappa values on children's pointing-gesture task at 12 months were for the Italian children: .65 for declarative
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production and .76 for declarative comprehension. Kappa values for criteria in both pointing tasks were for the Dutch children: .93 for declarative production and .77 for declarative comprehension. Kappa values for extra communicative behaviors in Dutch sample were .84 for declarative production .69 for declarative comprehension.
3.6 Data analysis
Prior to conducting the analyses, data set were screened for abnormalities (Field, 2009). We checked whether each of the variables were defined correctly and inspected their frequencies to detect possible out-of-range scores. There was one missing value for declarative production and two missing values for declarative comprehension. This was because the child was upset or distracted. These cases were only excluded when they missed the data required for the specific statistical analyses and were still be included in any of the analyses for which they did have the necessary information. Second, and prior to conducting statistical analyses, it was assessed whether the mean of each trail (for a detailed explanation of coding variables, see section 3.4) complied with the assumption of normality. Results indicated that the distributions of scores on all research variables departed from normality, and skewed distributions were detected. Hence, the assumption of normality was violated. Tabacknick and Fidell (2007) state, however, that skewness' deviation from normality will disappear in larger samples (> 100). In the present study, it was therefore decided to not go into this matter further and we assumed that the scores roughly approximated the normal distribution. We explored differences between declarative comprehension and – production by culture and gender in a Repeated Measures ANOVA (RMA) and (Sidaks) post hoc test. All of the above screening, computations, and analyses were undertaken using the statistical software package IBM SPSS Statistics 20.0 (2011).
4. Results
Spearman’s correlation analyses were conducted to explore the relation between declarative production and comprehension and independent variables like age, gender and culture.
Table 2.
Spearman Correlation’s for Declarative Comprehension and -Production.
Mean score declarative comprehension Mean score declarative production Ages in weeks Culture Gender Mean score declarative comprehension
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Correlation coefficients Sig. (2-tailed) 1.00 - .14 .05 .07 .36 .14 .06 -.12 .12 Mean score declarative production Correlation coefficients Sig. (2-tailed) .14 .05 1.00 - .06 .43 .05 .48 .07 .33 Ages in weeks Correlation coefficients Sig. (2-tailed) .07 .36 .06 .43 1.00 - -.09 .24 .01 .94 Culture Correlation coefficients Sig. (2-tailed) .14 .06 .05 .48 -.09 .24 1.00 - -.01 .94 Gender Correlation coefficients Sig. (2-tailed) -.12 .12 .07 .33 .01 .94 -.01 .94 1.00 -Note. n = 179 for declarative comprehension and n = 180 for declarative production.
No significant correlation was found. Moreover, no significant associations were found in either tasks between child, their ages in weeks (M = 52.97, SD = 2.87), gender and culture. Therefore these variables were not included in further analyses.
4.1 Analyses for the development of production and comprehension of declarative pointing
To examine if children start earlier to produce or to comprehend pointing, we performed a repeated measures ANOVA (RMA) with intention (comprehension and production) as within-subject factor and gender (girl vs. boy) and nationality (Italian vs. Dutch) as a between-group factor (see Figure 3 for the mean scores and SE).
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Figure 3. Mean Scores of Declarative Comprehension and –Production for Dutch and Italian Girls and Boys. Each Score above the Bars Represent Mean Scores.
A significant main effect of intention was found, (F(1,175) = 73.47, p < .001), showing that
children comprehend the pointing gesture better than they produced it.
To examine if there are significant differences between Dutch- and Italian children in pointing, we performed a repeated measures ANOVA with nationality (Dutch and Italian) as within-subject factor and gender (girl vs. boy) and intention (comprehension vs. production) as a between-group factor. We did not find a significant main effect of nationality (F(1,161) = .01, p
= .916).
In the first repeated measures ANOVA with intention (comprehension and production) as within-subject factor and gender (girl vs. boy) and nationality (Italian vs. Dutch) as a between-group factor, test of between-subjects effects showed no significant difference between these two nationalities (F(1,175) = 3.60, p = .059) and gender (F(1,175) = .09, p = .769). These
results showed that there is no significant difference for the average of both trails for both nationalities and gender. Further, test of within subjects contrast showed a significant result for linear component for intention (F(1,175) = 73.47, p < .001). Thus we can conclude that intention
does increase linearly over time for Dutch boys and –girls and Italian boys and –girls. In Post Hoc test, Sidaks comparisons showed that children displayed significantly more Declarative Comprehension than Declarative Production (Mdiff = .32, SE = .04, p < .001). Additionally, there
was a significant interaction effect for intention x gender (F(1,175) = 4.44, p = .037) (see Figure
4). Sidak’s post hoc test showed that girls displayed significantly more Declarative Comprehension than Declarative Production (Mdiff = .39, SE = .05, p < .001). In line with girls,
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boys also showed significantly more Declarative Comprehension than Declarative Production (Mdiff = .24, SE = .05, p < .001). Moreover, boys showed less declarative comprehension than
girls but more –production than girls did. The line which represented the outcomes for both tasks, for boys is less steep than the line is for girls.
Figure 4.Interaction Effect in Declarative- Comprehension and Production for Gender.
Furthermore, we did not find an interaction effect for intention x nationality (F(1,175) = 0.32, p
= .574). However, the RMA shows a three- way interaction for nationality x gender x intention (F(1,175) = 6.83, p = .01). For this three-way interaction Sidaks comparisons showed that Italian
girls showed more comprehension than Dutch girls (Mdiff = .19, SE = .08, p = .026; see Figure
5), and that Italian boys displayed more production than Dutch boys (Mdiff = .17, SE = .08, p =
.030; see Figure 6). Within the same culture, Italian girls showed more declarative comprehension than Italian boys (Mdiff = .17 SE = .08, p = .044) and conversely the same for
Italian boys, who showed more production than Italian girls (Mdiff = .18, SE = .08, p = .025). No
significantly difference were found between Dutch boys and girls for comprehension (Mdiff =
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Figure 5. Mean Scores for Declarative Comprehension for Dutch and Italian Girls and Boys.
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Furthermore, in the second RMA with nationality (Dutch and Italian) as within-subject factor and gender (girl vs. boy) and intention (comprehension vs. production) as a between-group factor, we did not find a significant interaction effect for nationality and declarative comprehension (F(2,161) = 3.05, p = .05) as in declarative production (F(2,161) = .62, p = .538). A
possible explanation why there is not found a main effect could be the fact that Italian girls outperformed Dutch girls in comprehension, but not on –production and Italian boys outperformed Dutch boys on – production.
4.2 Analyses for extra communicative behaviors in comprehension and production of declarative pointing
To examine if children aged 12 months use other communicative behaviors to comprehend or produce pointing, we examined extra communicative behaviors for declarative production and -comprehension. We used a repeated measure ANOVA with the mean of communicative behaviors (comprehension and production) as a within-subject factor and gender (boy and girl) x nationality (Dutch and Italian) as a between-group factor (see Figure 7, for the mean scores and SE).
Figure 7. Mean Scores of Extra Communicative Behaviors in Declarative Comprehension and -Production for Dutch and Italian Girls and Boys. Each Score above the Bars Represent Mean Scores.
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This analysis revealed an overall main effect of intention (F(1,175) = 23.58, p < .001), such that
in declarative production more responses were observed for communicative behaviors across the two cultures and gender.
To examine if there are significant differences between Dutch- and Italian children in pointing, we performed a second repeated measures ANOVA with nationality (Dutch and Italian) as within-subject factor and gender (girl vs. boy) and extra communicative behaviors (comprehension vs. production) as a between-group factor. We did not find a significant main effect of nationality (F(1,96) = .28, p = .601).
Furthermore, in the first RMA where is used the mean of communicative behaviors (comprehension and production) as a within-subject factor and gender (boy and girl) x nationality (Dutch and Italian) as a between-group factor, test of between-subjects effects showed significant difference for the average of both trails for Italian and Dutch children (F(1,175) = 10.15, p = .002). There is significant difference for the average of both trails for
Italian (M = 1.65, SD = .08) and Dutch children (M = 1.28, SD = .08). No significant effect was found for gender (F(1,175) = .11, p = .738). Further, test of within subjects contrast showed a
significant result for linear component for intention (F(1,175) = 23.58, p < .001). Children
produced significant more extra communicative behaviors in declarative production trails (M = 1.66, SD = .92), than in declarative comprehension trails (M = 1.27, SD = .99).
Sidak’s post hoc test confirmed that children showed more extra communicative behaviors for production than comprehension (Mdiff = .40, SE = .08, p < .001). Therefore, we
conclude that children displayed significantly more extra communicative behaviors in – production than in –comprehension (see Figure 8).
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Figure 8. Extra Communicative Behaviors of Declarative Production and –Comprehension for Dutch and Italian Girls and Boys.
Furthermore, we found no significant interaction effects in the first RMA for intention x nationality (F(1,175) = .017, p = . 897), intention x gender (F(1,175) = 1.03, p = .312), neither in
three-way interaction: intention x gender x nationality (F(1,175) = 1.78, p = .184).
In the second RMA where is used nationality (Dutch and Italian) as within-subject factor and gender (girl vs. boy) and extra communicative behaviors (comprehension vs. production) as a between-group factor we did not find an interaction effect for nationality x gender (F(1,96) = .49, p = .485). Furthermore, we did not find a significant interaction effect for
nationality and declarative comprehension (F(8,96) = 1.75, p = .097) as in declarative production
(F(8,96) = 1.29, p = .26).
To determine if the independent variables (nationality and gender) differ significantly whether children produce more communicative behaviors in comprehending or producing declarative pointing, we performed two one-way between-subject ANOVA’s. For declarative production we found a significantly main effect for nationality. The amount of extra communicative behaviors children showed in declarative production was significantly affected by culture (F(1,176) = 7.07, p = .009). That is, Italian children produced significantly
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SE = .14, p = .009). In this analysis there was not found a main effect for gender (F(1.176 = .09, p
= .767), neither an interaction effect for nationality and gender (F(1.176 = 1.08, p = .300)
In the second ANOVA wherein declarative comprehension was the dependent variable, children produced communicative behaviors to a much higher degree than when compared to the main affect of nationality (F(1.175) = 6.60, p = .011); it resulted that Italian
children produced significantly more communicative behaviors during declarative comprehension than Dutch children (Mdiff = .38, SE = .15, p = .011). In this analysis there was
not found a main effect for gender (F(1.175) = .70, p = .406), neither an interaction effect for
nationality and gender (F(1.175) = .33, p = .566).
5. Discussion/Conclusion
The overarching study goal was to explore the possible cultural influences in the development of declarative comprehension and -production of declarative pointing in two social-cultural western populations of 12-months-old children; differing for the ‘gesture-richness’ of their culture, namely Italian and Dutch. Overall, the results showed that children in both cultures better comprehend than produce declarative pointing. Moreover, some gender differences were found in the Italian sample. Italian girls showed more comprehension of the declarative gesture than Italian boys, whereas Italian boys produced more declarative pointing than Italian girls. These findings support a universal development of comprehension and production of pointing and socio-cultural differences in the production- and comprehension of declarative pointing. This will be further discussed in answering our hypotheses.
5.1 Comprehension and production of the declarative pointing
Concerning our first prediction that children will first start to comprehend- and after produce declarative pointing, it was found that 12-months-old children were more capable to comprehend the pointing gesture than to produce the pointing gesture. More research is needed to see whether declarative comprehension starts before –production because the ability to better comprehend than produce the pointing gesture is based solely on the experiment among Dutch and Italian children (Camaioni et al., 2004). An important note in this study is that we distinguish between simple gaze and point following from the comprehension of an intentional communicative act, because we checked for the following criterion: there must be eye-contact within two seconds after looking to the stimuli between the infant and the experimenter (Behne et al., 2012).
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Although there were conflicting results about which skill first occurred, some studies found evidence that children start to produce declarative pointing while other studies found the opposite result, this finding corroborated previous research (Bruner, 1983; Behne et al., 2012; Carpenter et al., 1998; Leung & Rheingold, 1981). The results of this comparison between two cultures support the idea that comprehension precedes production of declarative pointing in universal typical development. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that declarative production is a more demanding cognitive complexity because the child needs to have an understanding of others as possessing a psychological dimension (Tomasello & Camaioni, 1997). Production of declarative pointing seems to be the most demanding ability in declarative pointing and the one that is reliable associated with the understanding of intentions (Camaioni et al., 2004).
In this respect, the relation between pointing and later use of language seems related to each other. Children with a stronger communicative ability could be able to display a greater comprehension and production of declarative pointing first, and a more advanced linguistic level at later age (Colonnesi et al., 2010). Infants’ depend on the adult’s referential acts, including pointing, for the comprehension of language (Baldwin, 1991, 1993). Pointing is a first way to intentionally communicate in a referential which precedes language development (Colonnesi et al., 2010; Mundy et al., 2007). Declarative comprehension is an act of joint attention; following the adults’ pointing gesture in order to disambiguate the referent, eases the learning of new words (Colonnesi et al., 2010).
Therefore, we suggest that infants’ develop declarative comprehension first which results in infants learning to understand language. Thereafter, infants’ will show declarative production in advance of speech production. This study supports that this development is a universal process that applies to both cultures.
5.2 Gender difference in declarative pointing
A difference was found for gender in declarative pointing. Italian girls comprehended the declarative gesture more than Italian boys. In contrast to production: Italian boys produced declarative pointing more than Italian girls. Between the Dutch children, there were no differences found. These findings were partly expected. We expected girls to outperform boys in both tasks because girls outperform boys in social development (Lutchmaya and Baron-Cohen, 2002; Riso et al., 2010) and language development (Bornstein, Leach, & Haynes, 2004) However, only a significant result was found for gender in the Italian sample. This result in comprehension is in favor of girls. Indeed, Italian girls perform better on
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comprehensive tasks than Italian boys (Butterworth & Morissette, 1996; Camaioni et al., 2004). However, for declarative production Italian boys outperform Italian girls. An explanation for these results could be the experimental situation, what may have caused withdrawal in some children. Urgesi, Romanò, Fornasari, Brambilla, and Fabbro, (2012) examined the Temperament and Character Inventory for a big sample of Italian children aged 8 to 12 years. They showed that girls presented lower scores in Novelty Seeking than boys did. In the declarative production task, the experiment appeals to this trait, because the (new) stimulus is presented a few times. Probably girls were less inclined to react to the stimulus. In addition, in a longitudinal research for children at three, five and six years old; the trait shyness is also more seen in girls than boys (Bould, Joinson, Sterne, & Araya, 2012) and could have influenced girl’s performance, in particular in experimental settings. More research is needed to examine gender differences in declarative pointing.
5.3 Communicative behaviors in declarative pointing contexts
Concerning our fourth prediction, a higher level of extra communicative behaviors was found for the production rather than comprehension of pointing in both groups of children. Moreover, Italian children produced in both tasks significantly more extra communicative behaviors than Dutch children. One important explanation for the difference in using extra communicative behaviors in comprehension and production could be the correlation between language development and production of pointing. Children aged 12 months are in the period of transition to first words, communicative pointing gestures are very often produced with vocal components. Around the child’s second year of life, almost 70% of gestures are produced in coordination with vocalizations, and the coordination of gestures with deictic gestures, especially with the pointing gesture, has influence on subsequent lexical development (Murillo & Belinchón, 2012). However, in general girls outperform boys in language development (Bornstein, Leach & Haynes, 2004). Özçaliskan and Goldin-Meadow (2010) examined children as they progressed from one-word speech to multi-word speech. They found that boys not only produced speech and speech (S+S) combinations three months later than girls, but also produced gesture and speech (G+S) combinations expressing the same types of semantic relations three months later than girls. However, their study was performed in the natural environment of children with interaction with their parents. As mentioned before, girl’s temperament could be more susceptible for interaction with an experimenter in general. That means that girls probably could perform better on both trails but their temperament
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inhibited their performances, especially in the declarative production task. Because in the production task there is expected a more physically active reaction of the child.
The other important finding is that Italian children produce more extra behaviors in both intentions. It seems that for Italian children their environment stresses the communicative intention of gestures. In this way, Italian children seem to have an advantage because of their cultural “gesture-rich” environment. (Iverson et al., 2008; Mayberry & Nicoladis, 2000; Ozyürek et al., 2008). Italian children will get more opportunities to copy gestures and their environment consists of significantly larger amount of gestures; it will work like a vicious circle. Moore and D’Entremont (2001) claim that the reaction of the parent to the child serves as a reinforcer for the pointing behavior of the child.
5.4 Declarative pointing in Italian and Dutch infants
We found no convincing evidence for differences in pointing across 12-months-old Dutch and Italian children. However, in general Italian children, who are growing up in a ‘gesture-rich’ culture, seem to produce and to comprehend more pointing than Dutch children. The difference between these two cultures is in line with previous studies which discovered a correlated usage of parent and infant pointing across various cultural settings (Liszkowski & Tomasello, 2011; Liszkowski et al., 2012) and following the theory of Werner and Kaplan (1963) who describe pointing as a communicative tool that will be specialized through social interaction.
Previous studies about cultural influences in declarative comprehension and production of pointing are very scarce. A few studies have documented differences in producing pointing gestures by infants. Salomo and Liszkowski (2013) found that at the age of 11 months Chinese and Dutch children are more likely to display the pointing gesture than children living in Mexico. Furthermore, Liskowszki et al. (2012) examined infant pointing in seven different cultures. They found a very strong positive relation between the numbers of points between caregivers’ and their infants. Regarding the directionality of this relation, infants appear to follow more often their caregivers’ pointing than the other way around, indicating that caregivers initially take the lead.
Our results support some general social-cultural influence on the emergence of comprehension and production of declarative pointing. In the long term, these results may influence social-cognitive development of children growing up in two different cultures. First, declarative pointing in children already reflects features of human language, namely social cognition and cooperation. The results for Italian children may suggest a more advanced linguistic level at later age because of their advantage in declarative pointing (Colonnesi et al.,
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2010). It has been suggested that gestural input may facilitate the acquisition of spoken words; caregivers used them in conjunction with speech (Goodwyn & Acredolo, 1998; Goodwyn, Acredolo, & Brown, 2000). Longobardi, Rossi-Arnaud and Spataro (2014), found that for 12- months-old infants with small gestural repertoires, a high frequency of gesture use enhanced the process of lexical learning. Thus, our results suggest that Italian infants may have an advantage in learning their language because of the relation between declarative pointing and language development.
A second implication could apply to children with specific language impairment (SLI). Higher gesture rates associated with speech difficulties have been reported for children with SLI (Evans, Alibali, & McNeil, 2001; Fex & Månsson, 1998). Gestures may function as an alternative means of communication in children with limited verbal expression skills. Wijkamp, Gerritsen, Bonder, Haisma, and Van der Schans (2010) examined Dutch children with severe speech and language impairments (SSLI) use sign-supported Dutch (SSD) to facilitate communication. Gestures and signs seem to have little added value to children whose verbal skills are sufficient to express their communicative intents. After six months of SSD input the children did use early gestures more frequently, in particular deictic gestures. The additional input of gestures affords these children the opportunity to express themselves. Italian children, exposed to a ‘gesture-rich’ culture that allows them to profit from these gestures from early on, will probably profit also at later ages. This regards especially to children with a language impairment.
The emergence of basic prelinguistic gestures, as pointing, is socially mediated (Salomo & Liszkowski (2013). Our findings regarding the differences between these two cultures disregard a more cognitively oriented account, suggesting that socialization processes are not effective before infant’s gesture and actively participate in social exchanges (Tomasello, 2008). In fact, pointing has previously been shown to be a milestone in communicative and social-cognitive development (Liszkowski & Tomasello, 2011; Rowe & Goldin-Meadow, 2009). To benefit from and participate in sociocultural activities, one needs some fundamental communication abilities. The current study suggests that the emergence of pointing gesture is already mediated by social interactions and imitations processes. Moreover, Italian infants benefit from their ‘gesture-rich culture’ more than Dutch children do from their culture. This ‘gesture rich’ culture seems to structure the ontogeny of social cognition from early on (Salomo & Liszkowski, 2013).
Finally, declarative pointing can be seen as a first step toward the emergence of the theory of mind (Camaioni et al., 2004). Declarative pointing is a skill of joint attention and is
