Play and Attention: Social Foundations of Early Language

Background, purpose. Language emerges in the context of social interactions that include play. The purpose of the study was to examine how infant language development is related to joint attention, social toy play, and preferences for attention games. Material and methods. To examine how infant language development is related to joint attention, social toy play, and preferences for attention games. we videotaped 153 mothers and their 14-month-olds in a 20-minute laboratory observation that included a high chair task and a free-play session. Joint visual attention and social toy play were coded from the videotapes by trained observers. Mothers rated their own and their infants’ preferences for specific types of play at home. Language items selected from the Bayley Scales of Infant Development were used to assess preverbal, receptive, and productive language skills. Results, conclusions. Reciprocal social toy play sequences and preferences for simple and coordinated attention games were related to infant language. Joint attention was related to social toy play interactions and preferences for specific attention games at home, but was not directly related to language skills at 14 months. The results suggest that joint attention skills support coordinated, reciprocal, language rich interactions that foster infant language development