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Abstract

The present study focuses on reformulation of requests for objects in 18-month-olds as a function of mother's responses to the first formulation. Failures due to no response (non-acknowledgement) are contrasted with failures due to misunderstanding (request for clarification). Coding was carried out in two phases. The first phase consisted of categorizing each motor and vocal behaviour produced by each subject. The second phase consisted of categorizing reformulations, i.e. the shift between the behavioural pattern for a given formulation and the pattern characterizing the subsequent formulation. The findings suggest that in this transitional period, gestures and words play complementary roles with respect to the two components - regulation and referencing - of the act of requesting an object.

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Reformulating requests at 18 months: gestures,vocalizations and words

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