Young Children's Production and Comprehension of Nonverbal Deictic Behaviors

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Abstract
The production of pointing, the understanding of pointing and the comprehension of another's line of regard was investigated in 36 male and female infants 9-, 12-, and 14-months-old. Production of pointing was present in eight out of twelve 12-month-olds and in eleven out of twelve 14-month-olds; only a few of the youngest Ss pointed. For the youngest infants comprehension of pointing was a function of the distance between the person pointing and the object pointed to. All 12- and 14-month-old children comprehended the pointing to a nearby object and most of them also understood the pointing to a distant object. Ten out of twelve 12-month-olds and eleven out of twelve 14-month-olds were able to tell where another person was looking if both the cues of movement and orientation of the head and the eyes were present; their performance was less perfect with only the cue of orientation present or with only the eyes moving. Never more than three out of the twelve youngest Ss succeeded on any of these percept-diagnosis tasks.

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