An ethological study of preverbal communications : some implications for thought and language
Date
1979
Authors
Edgell, Dorothy
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Abstract
This research was concerned with (a) a systematic investigation of infant preverbal communication and (b) an examination of the role played by this communication in the development of thought and language. The essence of the study was empirical and based upon the methods and assumptions of ethology. Videotaped naturalistic observations of one mother-infant pair were collected from birth to six months. The data were collated and analyzed using the McLeish-Martin coding system of communicative behaviours. Seven activities were identified; bathing, feeding, dressing (long and short), play with objects, enface interaction and baby alone. The mother-infant communicative behaviours in each were described and compared over time. Communication between the mother and infant was conceptualized as a behavioural dialogue or 'conversation.' The elements of that dialogue included spoken words (verbal behaviour), audible sounds (vocal behaviour) and kinesic movements (non vocal behaviour). This dialogue began at birth in the initial mutual adjustment between the mother and infant and in everyday, ongoing activities, and was expressed later in reciprocal interaction. The results of the analysis confirm that the infant plays an active role in the development of communication with the mother. The infant's communicative skills included; expressive declarative or demanding behaviours, affective behaviours including smiling and babbling; and receptive behaviours which involved the ability to attend to, recognize and _distinguish familiar sounds and objects and, to understand the general meaning of mother's speech. These latter abilities were demonstrated in the infant's facial and bodily gestural responses. Of a possible 16 communicative behaviours, five were observed at one week and 14 by 16 weeks. The activities of bathing, feeding and dressing (long) were identified as task-oriented and low interactive activities in contrast to the more sociable, high interactive episodes during dressing (short), playing and enface sequences. The periods when the infant was alone were recognized as practise sessions during which she learned to attend to and manipulate objects, and exercise her vocal skills.
It is concluded that the beginnings of verbal language and thinking are to be found in the infant's pre gross-motor and pre-verbal stage of development. The behavioural dialogue between mother and- infant forms the matrix within which verbal language and thinking are formed. The earliest indicators of the thought process are found in the perceptual development of the infant which is stimulated and supported by the mother. It is suggested that thinking does not only develop from manipulation with objects, or from the ability to use words, but more significantly from the infant's initial perceptual responses to and differentiation of the social and physical environment. In the context of the neonate, thinking (perceptual differentiation of animate and inanimate objects) and language (vocal and non vocal behaviours), develop interdependently from birth.