ords were touted by parents and researchers alike as marking the onset of the ability to represent concepts symbolically and use symbols for the express purpose of communicating with others. More recently, based in part on increasing appreciation of the ground-breaking theoretical work of Werner and Kaplan (1963), researchers have taken a closer look at the precursors of verbal language with an eye toward delineating the steps by which children gradually become proficient in using arbitrary symbols to stand for real-world phenomena. One of their most thought-provoking ideas is the notion that the development of representational ability requires children to tolerate greater and greater "distancing" of the symbol from the referent. For example, the use of an onomatopoetic symbol (e.g., "woof") to symbolize the sound that dogs make is not quite as "distant" from the referent as the more arbitrary symbol, "barking." The latter makes greater cognitive demands on the child because the relationship must be maintained mentally without support from the environment.As interest in subtle milestones of language development has grown, including the notion of "distancing" of symbol from referent, so also has interest in the role of physical actions including a variety of kinds of gestures. Such a focus, researchers point out, makes a good deal of sense given the prominence of sensorimotor schemes (i.e., actions on objects) during the first year of life. For example, the onset of intentional communication is signalled by a small set of gestures, which essentially launch the child into purposefully communicating with others. These "performatives" or "deictic" gestures as they are variously called, begin around 10 months of age and include such actions as effortful reaching towards objects to indicate that they are wanted, directing adult attention to objects by holding them up or giving them, and pointing at objects to indicate interest or need (Bates,...
