Pointing, naming, and talk about objects: referential behaviour in children and mothers

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Abstract
This study investigates the relationship of children's communicative pointing and maternal language to the child's acquisition of object labels. Ten children with a high proportion of nouns (a High Referen tial group) were matched for vocabulary level with 10 children with fewer nouns and a more varied lexicon (a Low Referential group). The frequency of children's communicative pointing during play and the proportion of maternal talk used to label and describe objects during independent observations of mother-child interaction were coded from videotaped observations at 14 and 20 months. At 14 months there were no differences between the two groups in either pointing or maternal language. Both communicative pointing and maternal talk about objects, however, increased significantly for the High Referential group at 20 months. At 20 months, children in the High Referential group pointed out objects to their mothers more than three times as often as children in the Low Referential group. There was no change over time in communicative pointing and mater nal talk about objects for children and mothers in the Low Referential group. At 20 months, there was a significant positive correlation between communicative pointing and maternal talk about objects for children in the High Referential group.