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Abstract

According to Bruner and his co-workers, one index of the infant's growing ability to master the rules and structure of social games would be a more and more efficient co-ordination of vocal utterances with motor behaviours. From being emitted indiscriminately through out the game, the infant's vocalizations would gradually tend to be circumscribed to specific juncture points, namely, during the carrying out the game's actions. The aim of this study was to examine this hypothesis with a larger sample of 25 infants, who were followed longitudinally from the age of 6 to 24 months. In each of the 6 sessions, mothers and infants played two popular games, peek-a-boo and ball, for 3 minutes each. Analysis of the infants' vocalizations and game-relevant gestures revealed a distinct age-related pattern by which these two behaviours tended to occur more and more simultaneously. This development is shown to be a valid phenomenon in its own right, independent of the changes in vocalizations and gestures over time.

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Infant timing of vocalizations in two mother-infant games: a longitudinal study

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