The context of infants' giving gestures in mother-infant dyads: Typical giving gestures and those contingent on exploration and play

Edna Orr, Gabriela Kashy Rosenbaum

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This study aimed to focus on a niche that has not yet been investigated in infants' gesture studies that is the effect of the prior context of one specific gestural behavior (gives) on maternal behavior. For this purpose, we recruited 23 infants at 11 and 13 months of age yielded 246 giving gesture bouts that were performed in three contexts: typical when the object was offered immediately, contingent on exploration, and contingent on play. The analysis revealed that maternal responses to infants' giving gestures varied and were affected by their age and gesture context. Hence, mothers amended their responses according to the background that generated each gesture. The number of verbal responses to infants' giving gestures decreased as the infants aged, whereas the number of pretense responses increased. For infants aged 11 months, mothers generally provided motor responses to typical gestures. However, for infants aged 13 months, this trend declined and was replaced by a strong positive correlation between giving gestures contingent on play and verbal responses. We concluded that the type of activity with objects prior to employing giving gestures could enhance infants' symbolic skills because caregivers monitor the contingent act that yields the gesture that shapes their response.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)619-633
Number of pages15
JournalInfancy
Volume28
Issue number3
Early online date3 Feb 2023
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 May 2023
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The authors grateful to the parents and babies who participated in this study.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 International Congress of Infant Studies.

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'The context of infants' giving gestures in mother-infant dyads: Typical giving gestures and those contingent on exploration and play'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this