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The emergence of gestures in the first year of life in the Infant School classroom

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Abstract

The psychological literature on the development of gestures during the first year of life has been limited. It has mainly focused on the development of pointing at around 11 months of age, considering it the gesture that allows triadic interactions. However, recent studies have argued for the importance of earlier ostensive gestures (showing and giving), not only as precursors of pointing, but also as important gestures for early cognitive and communicative development. These studies have also emphasized the mediating role of materiality and of others (adults and peers) in communicative acts, especially in pre-verbal interactions. This paper reports a longitudinal study of first-year infants in an Infant School classroom in Madrid. Through a microgenetic analysis both infants’ gestures and teachers’ educational actions related to gesture development were investigated. The results highlight (1) the central role of the teacher in the birth and configuration of infants’ gestural repertoire; and (2) materiality as a configurative aspect of communicative interactions during this period as infants communicate not only about objects but through them. Among the types of gestures observed, self-directed gestures predominated, especially ostensive gestures, these being related to early self-regulation processes. Gesture development could be understood as a process of progressive distancing of the infant from or between the material world and himself/herself. In this process, the teacher can encourage, redirect, and structure the infant’s productions through adjustment of their educational activity.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the director and the teachers of “La Cigüeña María” Infant School for their generosity in trusting and accepting us into their classrooms, for participating in our group discussions and also for their love for education and the wellbeing of the children. We also thank the parents for allowing their children to participate in this study.

Funding

This research was sponsored by the Interuniversity Cooperation Project UAM-Santander with Latin America (CEAL-AL/2015-28), and EDU2015–64129-P (MINECO-FEDER), I + D from the Secretary of State for Research, Development and Innovation, Spain.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Cantoblanco, 28049, Madrid, Spain

    Irene Guevara, Iván Moreno-Llanos & Cintia Rodríguez

Authors
  1. Irene Guevara
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  2. Iván Moreno-Llanos
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  3. Cintia Rodríguez
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Irene Guevara.

Additional information

Irene Guevara de Haro is a PhD student in Psychology at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain. She has a master’s degree in Psychology of education, with specialization in early development. She studied psychology at the Universidad Central de Venezuela, where she focused her research in the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Her research now is focussed in non-verbal communication development, early years school, interaction between infants and teachers, and manifestations of early executive functions.

Publications

Guevara, I. & Kasem, K. (2014). Trastorno del espectro autista: productividad científica, análisis y tendencias en la investigación universitaria en el área metropolitana de Caracas / Autism Spectrum Disorder: Scientific productivity, análisis and university research tendencies withing the Caracas Metropolitan Area. Revista Psicología, 33(2), 97-130. In http://saber.ucv.ve/ojs/index.php/rev_ps/article/view/12421/12099

Iván Moreno Llanos is a PhD student in Psychology at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain. He has a master’s degree in Psychology of education, with a focus in Early Development, where he came into contact with the thesis of the Pragmatics of the Object. His current area of research is the origin and development of the Executive Functions and Self-regulation in the young children in everyday situations, with non-verbal mediators such as the uses of the objects and private gestures.

Publications

Rodríguez, C., Estrada, Moreno-Llanos, I. & De los Reyes, J.L. (2017). Executive Functions and educational actions in an Infant School: private uses and gestures at the end of the first year. Estudios de Psicología, 38 (2) 385-423 doi/full/10.1080/02109395.2017.1305061

Cintia Rodríguez is a Professor of Developmental Psychology at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain. She worked in the Geneva School in the 1980s, where she developed a semiotic-pragmatic approach on objects in communicative-educative situations (Pragmatics of the Object). Her research area is concerned with early socio-cognitive development in everyday contexts, familiar adults-babies/children interactions at home. Her research now is focussed in the early years school, interactions between teachers and babies/toddlers, early manifestations and development of the executive functions in the classroom.

Selected publications by chronological order

Rodríguez C., Basilio, M., Cárdenas, K., Cavalcante, S., Moreno-Núñez, A., Palacios, P. & Yuste, N. (2018). Object Pragmatics: Culture and communication, the bases for early cognitive development. In A. Rosa & J. Valsiner (Eds.). Cambridge Handbook of Sociocultural Psychology (pp. 223-244). 2nd Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Palacios, P., Rodríguez, C. & Méndez-Sánchez, C. (2018). Communicative Mediation by Adults in the Construction of Symbolic Uses by Infants. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 52, 209-227.

Rodríguez/ C., Benassi, J., Estrada, L, Alessandroni, N. (2017). Early social interactions with people and objects. In A. Slater & G. Bremner (Eds.). An Introduction to Developmental Psychology, 3rd Edition, (pp. 213-257). 3rd Edition. New York: Wiley.

Rodríguez, C., Estrada, Moreno-Llanos, I. & De los Reyes, J.L. (2017). Executive Functions and educational actions in an Infant School: private uses and gestures at the end of the first year. Estudios de Psicología, 38 (2) 385-423 doi/full/10.1080/02109395.2017.1305061

Basilio, M. & Rodríguez, C (2017). How toddlers think with their hands: social and private gestures as evidence of cognitive self-regulation in guided play with objects. Early Child Development and Care, 187, 12, 1971-1986 DOI: 10.1080/03004430.2016.1202944

Moreno-Núñez, A., Rodríguez, C. & Del Olmo, M.J. (2017). Rhythmic ostensive gestures: How adults facilitate babies’ entrance into early triadic interactions. Infant Behavior & Development 49, 168-181 doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2017.09.003

Rodríguez, C. Moreno-Núñez, A., Basilio, M. & Sosa, N. (2015). Ostensive gestures come first: their role in the beginning of shared reference Special issue: Semiotics and Cognition in Human Development. Cognitive Development, 36, 142-149.

Cavalcante, S. & Rodríguez, C. (2015). The understanding of die as an object that has Numerical functions. A longitudinal study using two children from the ages of 24 to 36months interacting with an adult. Special Issue: Semiotic tools in early mathematical knowledge. Estudios de Psicología, 35/2. DOI 10.1080/02109395.2014.1000028

Rodríguez, C. & Scheuer, N. (2015). The paradox between the numerically competent baby and the slow learning of two-to four-year-old children. Special Issue: Semiotic tools in early mathematical knowledge. Estudios de Psicología, 35/2. DOI10.1080/02109395.2014.1000009

Rodríguez, C. (2012). The functional permanence of the object: a product of consensus. In Martí, E. & Rodríguez, C. (ed.). After Piaget (pp. 123-150). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

Martí, E. & Rodríguez, C. (ed.) (2012). After Piaget. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

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Guevara, I., Moreno-Llanos, I. & Rodríguez, C. The emergence of gestures in the first year of life in the Infant School classroom. Eur J Psychol Educ 35, 265–287 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-019-00444-6

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