Looking behind vs. front to follow points: the longitudinal link between maternal pointing and infant vocabulary development

Abstract

The present study examined whether mothers’ pointing and the interaction between maternal pointing and infants’ point-following performance predict infants’ receptive and expressive vocabulary. At each month from 8 to 12, Turkish-speaking mother–infant dyads ( N = 56) participated in the decorated room paradigm to determine pointing frequency and the point-following paradigm to determine whether infants follow points to surrounding pictures. Receptive and expressive vocabulary was measured at 14 and 18 months, respectively, using the Turkish CDI. Infants’ point-following performance at 11 months predicted their receptive vocabulary. Moreover, the interaction between maternal pointing and infant point-following at 12 months predicted receptive vocabulary, indicating that maternal pointing frequency predicted infants’ receptive vocabulary only for advanced point-followers, not for visual-field point-followers. We found no significant association between maternal pointing or infants’ point-following performance with expressive vocabulary. These findings suggest that infants’ point-following performance plays a role in their early word learning during mother–infant interactions.