Deixis -- a fundamental part of communication -- involves combinations of speech, gesture and eye-gaze, yet little is known about the temporal dynamics of this coordination. The authors analysed eye-gaze, pointing gestures and verbal productions in 514 deictic episodes during triadic, semi-naturalistic, book-reading sessions performed by Italian…

Individuals with sex chromosome trisomies (SCTs) have an increased risk of language delays and impairments. However, there are only a few data relative to their language development in early childhood. The present study aimed to investigate the preverbal skills shown by a group of 8-month-old children with SCTs to assess the presence of a possible…

The study was designed to investigate pragmatic development and the ability to make comments/questions on social and non-social topics in Italian-speaking children aged 18-47 months. Parents of 190 children completed an adaptation of the Language Use Inventory into Italian. Overall, the children's performance on the subscales of the LUI-Italian…

Analyses of elicited pantomime, primarily of English-speaking children, show that preschool-aged children are more likely to symbolically represent an object with gestures depicting an object's form rather than its function. In contrast, anecdotal reports of spontaneous gesture production in younger children suggest that children use multiple…

We report on an analysis of spontaneous gesture production in 2-year-old children who come from three countries (Italy, United Kingdom, Australia) and who speak two languages (Italian, English), in an attempt to tease apart the influence of language and culture when comparing children from different cultural and linguistic environments.…

This cross-linguistic study investigated whether the native language has any influence on lexical composition among Italian (N = 125) and Finnish (N = 116) very preterm (born at <32 gestational weeks) children at 24 months (controls: 125 Italian and 146 Finnish full-term children). The investigation also covered the effect of maternal education…

The present study examined continuity/discontinuity and stability/instability of noun and verb production measures in 30 child-mother dyads observed at 16 and 20 months, and predictive relations with the acquisition of nouns and verbs at 24 months. Children exhibited significant discontinuity and robust stability in the frequency of nouns and…

Purpose: This follow-up study assessed (a) the influence of phonological working memory (pWM), home literacy environment, and a family history of linguistic impairments in late talkers (LTs); (b) the diagnostic accuracy of a task of nonword repetition (NWR) in identifying LTs; and (c) the persistence of lexical weaknesses after 10 months. Method:…

The present study focuses on the characteristics of parental child-directed communication and its relationship with child language development. For this purpose, thirty-six toddlers (18 males and 18 females) and their parents were observed in a laboratory during triadic free play at ages 1;3 and 1;9. The characteristics of the maternal and…

The present study examined the relation between language and social ability in a sample of 268 preschoolers aged 18-35 months. Expressive language was assessed with the Italian adaptation of the Language Development Survey (LDS), and Social Competence was assessed with the Questionnaire on Peer Interactions in the Kindergarten (QPI). Results…

Background: Understanding lexical abilities in infants and toddlers is important, yet no single tool can be used. Aims: To perform a validation of a new tool (known as the Picture Naming Game, or "PiNG") for assessing lexical comprehension and production in toddlers and to obtain developmental trends for Italian children. Methods &…

Background: Research conducted on preterm children's linguistic skills has provided varying pictures, and the question of whether and to what extent preterm children are delayed in early language acquisition remains largely unresolved. Aims: To examine communicative and linguistic development during the second year in a group of Italian children…

This study examined early vocal production to assess whether it is possible to identify predictors of vocabulary development prior to the age point at which lexical delay is usually identified. Characteristics of babbling and first words in 12 Italian children with slow expressive development (late talkers; LT) were compared with those of 12…

Background: Children with Down's syndrome seem to show a preference for the use of gestural rather than vocal productions during the first stages of language development. This "gestural advantage" could actually be due to a developmental strategy used to compensate the difficulties in verbal production that are typical of language…

This study compared multiple characteristics of girls' and boys' vocabulary in 6 different linguistic communities--1 urban and 1 rural setting in each of 3 countries. Two hundred fifty-two mothers in Argentina, Italy, and the United States completed vocabulary checklists for their 20-month-old children. Individual variability was substantial…