The Integration of Mothers' Referential Speech with Joint Play

MESSER, DAVID J. The Integration of Mothers' Referential Speech with Joint Play. CmLD DEVELOPMENT, 1978, 49, 781-787. This investigation was conducted in order to study how mothers' speech to infants is related to other concurrent activities. The mothers and their infants (aged 11, 14, and 24 months) were observed in a joint play situation involving a number of toys. It was found that maternal reference to a toy coincided with the manipulation of that toy, and reference was particularly associated with actions which were likely to involve joint attention to a toy. These results indicate that nonverbal behavior can provide infants with information about the object to which their mothers' speech refers.