Does pointing predict bilingual children’s vocabulary?

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Previous studies have shown that children’s and parents’ pointing predicts monolingual children’s vocabulary, both concurrently and longitudinally. In this study, we predicted that children’s and parents’ pointing would positively predict bilingual children’s vocabulary growth in both languages. However, the strength of that link could differ depending on the child’s dominance, as parents often play a more didactic role when interacting in children’s non-dominant language. Children’s pointing might be a stronger predictor of their dominant language vocabulary. Parents’ pointing might be a stronger predictor of their non-dominant language vocabulary. Participants were 35 French-English bilingual children observed in free play situations, one in each language, at 30 months. Their vocabulary scores were collected at 30, 37, 49, and 63 months. As expected, children’s pointing predicted growth in dominant language vocabulary and parents’ pointing growth in children’s non-dominant language vocabulary. We discuss how parents’ interactional roles mediate how pointing relates to vocabulary growth.