Early Symbolization and Language Acquisition (1) : A case study on early developments in object manipulation and gestural communication

Abstract

In order to throw light on the early symbol formation and language acquisition of infants, we reported a case study as a part of our larger studies. We observed one Japanese infant named Yuki for over 16 months (4 to 19 months of her age). We speculated the early developments in object manipulation and gestural communication before the emergence of the first word. We found a parallel development in both domains (object manipulation and gestural communication) in our case of Yuki and that early symbolization developed as Yuki constructed her interactions with both people and objects much conventionally from 7 months. Symbolic function began to have an effect gradually on the child's object manipulation and gestural communication. And Yuki was an expressive type called by Nelson, K. when she began to utter 50 words. So early symbolization in object manipulation and gestural communication might develop gradually and at roughly the same time in the expressive type children during the prelinguistic period.