Benigni, Bretherton, Camaioni, & Volterra, 1979, Messinger & Fogel, 1998). These early intentional gestures, although clearly an advance over merely acting on objects, are still primitive in terms of their representational McIntyre4sophistication. In each case the referential meaning is clear only if the viewer follows the gestures trajectory to its target. Despite their primitive representational stature, however, there is no doubt these gestures constitute an important early step in symbolic development and pave the way for learning verbal language. Jumping ahead developmentally, another important milestone in the development of communicative gestures has been found during the 3- to 5-year-old period. Researchers from a number of laboratories (e.g., Boyatzis & Watson, 1993; OReilly, 1995) have documented a change across this developmental time span in how children choose to represent an action in pantomime, such as brushing ones teeth or writing with a pencil. At the younger end of this age range the data indicate a strong tendency to depend on a body part to represent the tool itselfMcIntyre5MethodParticipantsParticipants included 103 infants (58 boys, 45 girls) from a predominantly middle-class area of Northern California. Entry into the study was at 11 months (+/- 1 week). Infants routinely exposed to a language other than English or who had had more than five ear infections were excluded. Income level data confirmed a middle-income status for the majority of the families, with only 15% of the sample falling below $20,000. Participants were almost exclusively Caucasian (90%), the only exceptions being three African-American, seven Asian American, and five Hispanic children. ProceduresParticipant groups. The two primary groups included in the study were an experimental group, designated the Sign Training group (n = 32, 19 boys and 13 girls) and a control group, designated the Non-intervention Control group (n = 39, 22 boys and 17 g...
