Gestural-vocal deixis and representazional skills in early language development

The study explores the use of deictic gestures, vocalizations and words compared to content-loaded, or representational gestures and words in children’s early one- and two-element utterances from 10–12 to 24–25 months of age. Results indicate that deictic and representational elements are unevenly distributed in the gestural vs. the vocal modality, and in one vs. two-element utterances. The findings suggest that in the ages examined deictict gestures allow children to define and articulate their vocal productions. Otherwise representational skills appear to be markedly more constrained in the gestural as compared to the vocal modality.