Communication changes when infants begin to walk

Kelsey L. West; Jana M. Iverson

doi:10.1111/desc.13102

journal article Mar 23, 2021

Communication changes when infants begin to walk

Kelsey L. West Jana M. Iverson

Developmental Science Vol. 24 No. 5 · Wiley

View at Publisher Save 10.1111/desc.13102

Abstract

AbstractLearning to walk allows infants to travel faster and farther and explore more of their environments. In turn, walking may have a cascading effect on infants’ communication and subsequent responses from caregivers. We tested for an inflection point—a dramatic shift in the developmental progression—in infant communication and caregiver responses when infants started walking. We followed 25 infants longitudinally over 7 months surrounding the onset of walking (mean walk onset age = 11.76 months, SD = 1.56). After learning to walk, the pace of gesture growth (but not vocalization growth) increased substantially, and infants increasingly coordinated gestures and vocalizations with locomotion (e.g., by walking to a caregiver and showing off a toy bear). Consequently, caregivers had more opportunities to respond contingently to their infants during walking months compared to crawling months (e.g., “What did you find? Is that your bear?”). Changes in communication were amplified for infants who began walking at older ages, compared to younger walkers. Findings suggest that learning to walk marks a point in development when infants actively communicate in new ways, and consequently elicit rich verbal input from caregivers.

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Metrics

55

Citations

51

References

Details

Published: Mar 23, 2021
Vol/Issue: 24(5)
License: View

Authors

K

Kelsey L. West

Department of Psychology New York University New York NY USA

J

Jana M. Iverson

Department of Psychology University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh PA USA

Funding

National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders Award: F32DC017903

Cite This Article

Kelsey L. West, Jana M. Iverson (2021). Communication changes when infants begin to walk. Developmental Science, 24(5). https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13102

Communication changes when infants begin to walk

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