COGNITIVE AND SOCIAL COMPETENCES IN INFAN CY - WHAT ABOUT INDIVIDUAL-DIFFERENCES

In the aim of advancing research on relations between cognitive and so cio-communicative aspects of early human development, we propose a dif ferential approach. First we show how communicative intentionality, ma nifested in the first year of life, rests upon both cognitive and soci al developmental acquisitions. After a brief presentation of the tools deemed adequate to evaluating these competences, we explain how the c ognitive behaviors constructed in the course of child/mother interacti on sequences are part of more general strategies that probably orient the child's overall development. Finally, we describe research centere d on the relations between joint attention abilities enacted by the ba by and verbal performance at the time of producing its first words.