CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY OF COORDINATION BETWEEN INFANTS GAZE AND VOCALIZATIONS TOWARDS THEIR MOTHERS

The study aimed at providing more precise information about infants' c apacity to coordinate their vocalizations with gaze towards their moth ers. A total of 32 infants were observed, four boys and four girls in each of four age groups (4, 6, 8 and 10 months), in an observational s etting aimed at minimizing infants' casual looks to their mothers. Vid eotapes of mother-infant-toy interactions were coded separately for in fants' vocalizations and gaze towards their mothers, and the differenc e between observed and expected co-occurrence of these two communicati ve behaviours was evaluated by transformation into z-scores. Results i ndicate that only at 10 months of age do infants develop the ability t o coordinate vocalizations and gazes towards mother. Moreover, more co mpetent subjects show temporal relationships between gaze and vocaliza tions different from those observed in less competent subjects.