• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.1-25
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship among infants' nonverbal communication, maternal verbal behaviors and the infants' acquisition of vocabulary. The subjects were 93 pairs of 10 to 18 months old infants and their mothers residing in the Seoul and GyeongGi-Do area. The results were as follows : (1) In terms of the infants' nonverbal communicative means, it appeared that the group of 16~18 month olds utilized more gesture and vocalization. As regards the infants' nonverbal communicative functions in terms of social behavior and joint attention, the group of 16~18 month olds was found to perform more of the behaviors from this category than the other groups. There was a significant difference in the maternal verbal behavior among the different age groups. (2) Among the infants' nonverbal communicative means, gesture and vocalization, there appeared to be a significant relationship between vocalization and the infants' acquisition of vocabulary. In addition, there was an important relationship between the high usage of infants' nonverbal communicative functions with behavior regulation and the high usage of joint attention and the successful acquisition of vocabulary among infants. (3) Social play, which is a maternal verbal behavior categorized as one of the strategies for getting infants' attention, was significantly related to the acquisition of infants' vocabulary. (4) When mothers used more imitating sounds and mimetic words, requests for information, descriptions, conventional social expressions, and imitation to enhance responsiveness, infants were found to have acquired a larger vocabulary.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.50 no.2
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• pp.75-84
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between infants' turn-taking and vocabulary development during a one-year longitudinal study. Participants of this study included 46 infants who participated in both of the 1st and the 2nd tests. The infants' turn-taking frequencies were observed during mother-infant's free play for 10 minutes. The infants' vocabulary was investigated with MCDI-K for the 1st test and PRES for the 2nd test. The collected data were analyzed using both t-test and Pearson's correlation. The research results were as follows: First, the turn-taking frequencies and vocabulary of infants increased with age groups. Second, there was positive relationship between the turn-taking and the receptive vocabulary in group A at T1. Third, there were significant differences in receptive vocabulary at T1 and expressive vocabulary at T2 among group A according to the infants' turn-taking levels.