Temperament is associated with the use of communicative gestures in infancy

Abstract

AbstractTemperament is important to consider when investigating factors influencing communicative development in infancy. Existing research supporting the assumption that temperament and verbal language development are interrelated covers mainly verbal development in toddlerhood onward, but few studies focus on these relations in infancy. The present study of 91 infants from a general population pregnancy cohort in Finland used parent reports to investigate associations between temperament and the development of preverbal gesturing and receptive vocabulary in infancy. We found that infant temperament explained a substantially larger proportion of the variance in expressive communicative gesturing compared to receptive vocabulary. High Duration of orienting and Soothability, indicators of orienting/regulation capacity, and higher positive emotionality were found to be favourable for the use of communicative gestures. These temperament characteristics might promote interaction and thus advance communicative development. Knowledge on associations between infant temperament and communicative development is important in supporting outcomes in children with temperament characteristics possibly less favourable for communication development.Highlights The aim is to investigate how temperament traits relate to gesture use and receptive vocabulary in infants. Temperament was assessed at 6 and 12 months and receptive vocabulary and gesture use at 12 months using parental reports. Temperament was found to relate to communicative development in infancy, and to use of communicative gestures in particular.