‘What says meow?’. The role of context and linguistic experience in very young children's responses to what-questions

Abstract

ABSTRACTChildren aged 1; 4 to 1; 6 were asked common what/-questions under four different contextual conditions. The presence of a gesture was found to have a significant effect on the nonverbal components of children's responses, while linguistic sophistication and type of question asked affected vocal responses, but did not produce any consistent effects on nonverbal responses. Results are interpreted as suggesting that, at this early age, gestural information is processed relatively independently of speech. These findings cast doubt on the likelihood that maternal gestures facilitate early language responding. Case-study observations of the children's interactional behaviour with mothers suggest instead that prior experience with verbal routines was a factor in the children's experimental vocal performance.