Signs of emotion: What can preverbal children “say” about internal states?

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Abstract
Do infants explicitly recognize feelings and emotions in themselves and others? What would preverbal children say about internal states if they had the words? Investigation of infants' emotional understanding is limited by the challenge of understanding infant mental states before the onset of speech. I examined the use of symbolic gestures by normally hearing, preverbal children to discover whether infants and toddlers represent emotion concepts such as sad and scared, and feeling words such as sleepy. Participants were 22 children (5–28 months) in a childcare program where caregivers modeled symbolic gestures. Gesture use by children and caregivers were videotaped and coded to determine context, characteristics, and frequency. Twenty of 22 children used symbolic gestures; of these, 6 used emotion gestures, and 5 used feeling gestures. These gestures were not imitations of adult gestures, and qualitative data reveal their context and significance. Symbolic gestures reveal the sophistication of infants' internal worlds and their ability and desire to communicate thoughts and feelings. Symbolic gestures are a promising methodology for investigating early explicit mental processes. As a therapeutic communication tool, symbolic gestures may help children express emotions, participate in conversations about emotion, and construct their own understanding of internal states.