The Development of Pointing From Personal Directedness to Interpersonal Direction

Although there is consensus about the importance of early communicative gestures such as pointing, there is an ongoing debate regarding how infants develop the ability to understand and produce pointing gestures. We review competing theories regarding this development and use observations from a dia...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inHuman development Vol. 53; no. 3; pp. 110 - 126
Main Authors Carpendale, Jeremy I.M., Carpendale, Ailidh B.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel, Switzerland S. Karger AG 01.01.2010
S
Karger
Subjects
Biological and medical sciences
Child development
Communication
Developmental psychology
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Gestures
Infants
Interpersonal communication
Language
Language Acquisition
Longitudinal Studies
Newborn. Infant
Nonverbal Communication
Original Paper
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Social Development
Young Children
Pointing
Social development
Infancy
Gestures
Human
Social interaction
Gesture
Body movement
Infant
Pointing Social development
Motricity
Interpersonal relation
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Summary:Although there is consensus about the importance of early communicative gestures such as pointing, there is an ongoing debate regarding how infants develop the ability to understand and produce pointing gestures. We review competing theories regarding this development and use observations from a diary study of infants’ social development, focusing primarily on one infant from 6 to 14 months to illustrate a currently neglected view of the development of pointing. According to this view, infants first use their extended index finger as a manifestation of their own attention that emerges from their tactile exploration of close-by objects. Their gesture gradually becomes social in its use as infants become aware of the meaning of their action for adults.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
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ISSN:0018-716X
1423-0054
DOI:10.1159/000315168