Developing language in a developing body: the relationship between motor development and language development

During the first eighteen months of life, infants acquire and refine a whole set of new motor skills that significantly change the ways in which the body moves in and interacts with the environment. In this review article, I argue that motor acquisitions provide infants with an opportunity to practi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of child language 2010-03, Vol.37 (2), p.229-261
Main Author: IVERSON, JANA M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Articulation (Speech)
Babies
Biological and medical sciences
Child Development
Child Language
Cognition & reasoning
Communication (Thought Transfer)
Developmental psychology
Developmental Tasks
Evidence
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Individual Differences
Infant
Infants
Language Acquisition
Language Development
Language Impairments
Language Research
Models, Neurological
Motor ability
Motor Activity
Motor Development
Motor Skills
Native language acquisition
Newborn. Infant
Object Manipulation
Oral Language
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Psychomotor Skills
Resistance (Psychology)
Semantics
Skill Development
Speech
Young Children
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Summary:During the first eighteen months of life, infants acquire and refine a whole set of new motor skills that significantly change the ways in which the body moves in and interacts with the environment. In this review article, I argue that motor acquisitions provide infants with an opportunity to practice skills relevant to language acquisition before they are needed for that purpose; and that the emergence of new motor skills changes infants' experience with objects and people in ways that are relevant for both general communicative development and the acquisition of language. Implications of this perspective for current views of co-occurring language and motor impairments and for methodology in the field of child language research are also considered.
ISSN:0305-0009
1469-7602
DOI:10.1017/S0305000909990432