Verbal encouragement and joint attention in 18-month-old infants

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Abstract

The effects of three different attention-directing actions toward familiar and unfamiliar objects on 18-month-olds’ frequency of establishing and maintaining episodes of joint attention were examined. The results demonstrated that the addition of verbal information to gestures promoted longer but not more episodes of joint attention. The results also indicated that adults’ verbal encouragements were particularly effective in promoting joint attention when the infant was unfamiliar with the target object. The results are discussed in terms of the role different gestures play in the promotion and continuation of joint attention in infancy.

Section snippets

Participants

Sixty 18-month-olds (31 females) and parents participated. The mean age was 18 months and 10 days (range: 18 months and 19 days to 17 months and 21 days). Five additional infants were excluded due to fussiness and two additional infants were excluded due to experimenter error. Infants were recruited from a database maintained at the university and were primarily Caucasian and middle-class. Parents were initially contacted by telephone.

Apparatus and objects

In an effort to reduce visual distractions, the experiment

Results

The two dependent variables infants’ frequency of establishing joint attention, expressed as a difference score, and the proportion of time infants engaged in joint attention are presented in Fig. 2, Fig. 3, respectively. The total number of correct looks across conditions of attention-directing action and target familiarity is shown in Fig. 2. Infants’ proportion of time spent in joint attention (PTLT) across conditions of attention-directing action and target familiarity is shown in Fig. 3.

Discussion

The purpose of this experiment was to examine how verbal information by itself and accompanying an adult’s gesture promotes joint attention in 18-month-olds. First, and not surprisingly, we found that 18-month-olds can establish joint attention when they are only given a label for a familiar object but not when they are given a label for an unfamiliar object. More important to our hypothesis, however, we found that when an adult’s gesture is accompanied by a verbal label 18-month-olds spend

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for helpful comments on a previous draft of this manuscript by the late George Butterworth, Chris Moore and one anonymous reviewer. Portions of these data were presented at the International Conference for Infant Studies, Atlanta, GA, May 1998.

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