Introduction

Abstract

The aim of this edited collection is to bring together recent research on the use of communicative gesturing in the first 2 years of life as an important step in the child’s transition to a linguistic system. Ten years ago, Action, Gesture and Symbol (Lock, 1978) was published, reflecting the state of the art in research on the emergence of language with an emphasis on the transition from prespeech types of communication to a fully developed use of language. During the years between the publication of that volume and the present one, there was not only an increase in the number of studies examining this issue as it relates to hearing children acquiring spoken language, but there was an important new focus on the part of some researchers who began to examine the early communication of children acquiring sign language. This development was in large part due to the acceptance of sign language as a linguistic system and its entrance into the mainstream of linguistic study.