Abstract
To investigate the emergence of communicative behaviour, the course of development of gestures and vocabulary in a normal infant was observed. Data was gathered for one normal male infant by using the diary method from six to eighteen months of age.
The following results were obtained from this one year period of observation.
(1) The order of the appearance of gestures fell into three groups: pointing, head-shaking, showing and hand-waving for the first group; hand-raising, nodding, bowing, out-stretched arms (vertically) for the second group; and out-stretched hand and beckoning for the third group.
(2) Although the gestures in the firstgroup emerged as early as nine months of age, they had no communicative function right after appearance.
(3) The gestures in the second group appeared later than the first group but had a communicative function during the early stage of their appearance.
(4) The third group of gestures did not appear within the observation period.
As a result of this study, we think that there is a stage in which an infant enjoys producing gestures without a communicative function before words and gestures are used for communication. We also speculated that this stage plays an important role in formulating the foundation of communicative functions.
