• Korean Journal of Child Studies
• /
• v.26 no.1
• /
• pp.155-167
• /
• 2005

Korean infants' use of gesture was examined with 45 10-to 17-month olds. The mothers of infants were asked to check each word in the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory-Korean (MCDI-K) vocabulary checklist if their infant had a gesture for a given word and to indicate what kind of early communicative behavior she showed in 5 different situations. The results show that infants in this study have 11 gestures, of which many are learned within the context of routines or games. Referential gestures were rarely reported. There was no positive correlation between the number of gestures and the number of expressive words. However, more qualitative measures on early communicative behaviors show that there was a positive correlation between "frequent use of gestures" and "try to communicate by verbal means".