The role of joint attentional processes in early language development

In this paper I examine the role of joint attentional processes in the child's early lexical acquisition and conversational interaction. In both cases I conclude that relatively extended periods of adult-child joint attentional focus on nonlinguistic entities, perhaps as manifest in routines, scaffold the child's early language development. On the other hand, adult directiveness - whether of child behavior/attention or of the dyad's conversational topic - has a negative effect on early language development. For both lexical acquisition and conversational interaction some findings from experimental studies are available to supplement conclusions based on correlational evidence. Based on these findings, I propose a developmental sequence of joint attentional processes in early language development and discuss the role of adults in the child's passage through this sequence. © 1988.

Duke Scholars

Author Michael Tomasello Psychology & Neuroscience