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Papers by Nevena Dimitrova

Neuropsychiatrie de l'Enfance et de l'Adolescence, 2009

Le but de cet article est de présenter l'autoquestionnaire américain de McHale permettant l'évalu... more Le but de cet article est de présenter l'autoquestionnaire américain de McHale permettant l'évaluation de la qualité du coparentage ainsi qu'un premier pas en direction de sa validation structurelle et de construit en langue française. Quarante et une familles suisses francophones et 84 familles nordaméricaines ont rempli ce questionnaire ainsi qu'un autre portant sur leur satisfaction conjugale (Dyadic Adjustment Scale [DAS]). Les résultats des familles suisses correspondent aux résultats américains : d'une part, la distribution des items en quatre facteurs (intégrité familiale, conflit, affection et dénigrement) est retrouvée et, d'autre part, un lien relatif entre la qualité du coparentage et celle des relations conjugales est observé. Ce deuxième résultat confirme la validité de construit du questionnaire, vu le lien reconnu entre ces deux sous-systèmes. Étant donné l'influence de la qualité du coparentage sur le développement socio-affectif de l'enfant, disposer d'un outil permettant son évaluation, dans ses aspects tant positifs (soutien, chaleur, etc.) que négatifs (dénigrement, conflit, etc.), est un atout important aussi bien en recherche qu'en clinique.

Research with typically developing children suggests a strong positive relation between early ges... more Research with typically developing children suggests a strong positive relation between early gesture use and subsequent vocabulary development. In this study, we ask whether gesture production plays a similar role for children with autism spectrum disorder. We observed 23 18-month-old typically developing children and 23 30-month-old children with autism spectrum disorder interact with their caregivers (Communication Play Protocol) and coded types of gestures children produced (deictic, give, conventional, and iconic) in two communicative contexts (commenting and requesting). One year later, we assessed children’s expressive vocabulary, using Expressive Vocabulary Test. Children with autism spectrum disorder showed significant deficits in gesture production, particularly in deictic gestures (i.e. gestures that indicate objects by pointing at them or by holding them up). Importantly, deictic gestures—but not other gestures—predicted children’s vocabulary 1 year later regardless of communicative context, a pattern also found in typical development. We conclude that the production of deictic gestures serves as a stepping-stone for vocabulary development.

Typically-developing (TD) children frequently refer to objects uniquely in gesture. Parents trans... more Typically-developing (TD) children frequently refer to objects uniquely in gesture. Parents translate these gestures into words, facilitating children’s acquisition of these words (Goldin-Meadow et al. in Dev Sci 10(6):778–785, 2007). We ask whether this pattern holds for children with autism (AU) and with Down syndrome (DS) who show delayed vocabulary development. We observed 23 children with AU, 23 with DS, and 23 TD children with their parents over a year. Children used gestures to indicate objects before labeling them and parents translated their gestures into words. Importantly, children benefited from this input, acquiring more words for the translated gestures than the not translated ones. Results highlight the role contingent parental input to child gesture plays in language development of children with developmental disorders.

Early spontaneous gesture, specifically deictic gesture, predicts subsequent vocabulary developme... more Early spontaneous gesture, specifically deictic gesture, predicts subsequent vocabulary development in typically developing (TD) children. Here, we ask whether deictic gesture plays a similar role in predicting later vocabulary size in children with Down Syndrome (DS), who have been shown to have difficulties in speech production, but strengths in spontaneous gesture and baby sign use. We compared the gestures and baby signs produced by twenty-three children with DS (Mage = ;) and twenty-three TD children (Mage = ;), in relation to their expressive spoken vocabulary size one year later. Children with DS showed significant deficits in gesture production, particularly for deictic gestures, but strengths in baby sign production, compared to their typically developing peers. More importantly, it was the baby signs produced by children with DS, but not deictic gestures, that predicted their spoken vocabulary size one year later. Our results further highlight the important role baby signs can play in language development in children with developmental disorders.

Encyclopedia of Language Development

Developmental psychology researchers examine the temporal relationships of social and communicati... more Developmental psychology researchers examine the temporal relationships of social and communicative behav- iors, such as how a child responds to a name call, to understand early typical and atypical development and to discover early signs of autism and developmental delay. These related behaviors occur together or within close temporal proximity, forming unique patterns and relationships of interest. However, the task of finding these early signs, which are in the form of atypical behavioral patterns, becomes more challenging when behaviors of multiple children at different ages need to be compared with each other in search of generalizable patterns. The ability to visually explore the temporal relationships of behaviors, including flexible redefinition of closeness, over multiple social interaction sessions with children of different ages, can make such knowledge extraction easier. We have de- signed a visualization tool called TipoVis that helps psychology researchers visually explore the temporal patterns of social and communicative behaviors. We present two case studies to show how TipoVis helped two researchers derive new understandings of their data.

Gestures are the first forms of conventional communication that young children develop in order t... more Gestures are the first forms of conventional communication that young children develop in order to intentionally convey a specific message. However, at first, infants rarely communicate successfully with their gestures, prompting caregivers to interpret them. Although the role of caregivers in early communication development has been examined, little is known about how caregivers attribute a specific communicative function to infants’ gestures. In this study, we argue that caregivers rely on the knowledge about the referent that is shared with infants in order to interpret what communicative function infants wish to convey with their gestures. We videotaped interactions from six caregiver-infant dyads playing with toys when infants were 8, 10, 12, 14, and 16 months old. We coded infants’ gesture production and we determined whether caregivers interpreted those gestures as conveying a clear communicative function or not; we also coded whether infants used objects according to their conventions of use as a measure of shared knowledge about the referent. Results revealed an association between infants’ increasing knowledge of object use and maternal interpretations of infants’ gestures as conveying a clear communicative function. Our findings emphasize the importance of shared knowledge in shaping infants’ emergent communicative skills.

B ates and colleagues' influential model of the emer gence of intentional communication in infanc... more B ates and colleagues' influential model of the emer gence of intentional communication in infancy sug gests that infants' first gestures instrumentalize the other in order to obtain a desired goal Bates, Benigni, Bretherton, Camaioni & Volterra, 1979). Relying on Piaget's concept of mean end differentia tion, Bates et al. argued that intentional communication in infancy functions as a social tool use, in analogy to tool use that represents a major psychological achievement in the preverbal stage Bates et al., 1979). In this article, we claim that apprehending intentional communication uniquely from an instrumental perspec tive does not allow accessing the cognitive processing required for successful communication. Relying on an inferential model of communication (e. g. , we support that communication involves accessing the other's communicative intention in order to determine the meaning of his or her communicative acts. We use Clark's concept of 'common ground ' (1996) in order to account for the process that allows protagonists to access their respective communicative intentions. Common ground being the pool of meanings and experience shared between protagonists, they become able to rely on such shared knowledge in order to access each other's communicative intentions and thus reach successful communication. In quest of a model which accounts for the role of shared meanings in early psychological functioning, we addressed the cul tural historical theory by Vygotsky and particularly the key concept of semiotic mediation of the psyche (Vygotsky, 1935(Vygotsky, /1987. However, as it will be further developed, Vygotsky did not apprehend the preverbal development as semiotically mediated. It is in the approach of Object Pragmatics (Moro & Rodriguez, 2005) -relying and extending Vygotsky's hypotheses -that we found a theoretical account of how meaning is being constructed and shared in the pre verbal stage. This approach and its key concept of 'con ventional use of objects' represent the theoretical frame work underlying the semiotic perspective on intention al communication in infancy that we suggest in this arti cle. Our argumentation in favor of such an approach is illustrated by two short examples of gestures produced respectively by a 12 and a 16 months old child in order to communicate intentionally to an adult.

Pour que deux protagonistes parviennent à communiquer, ils doivent non seulement partager les sig... more Pour que deux protagonistes parviennent à communiquer, ils doivent non seulement partager les signes verbaux et/ou non verbaux qu’ils utilisent, mais ils doivent également parvenir à accéder à l’intention communicative de chacun. Ce dernier aspect de la communication a été intimement lié aux significations et aux connaissances que les protagonistes partagent (angl. common ground). Malgré le fait que l’importance des significations partagées ait été soulignée dans la littérature concernant la communication entre adultes, cet aspect n’a pas été étudié en ce qui concerne le développement précoce de la communication. Dans le présent travail, nous suggérons d’investiguer le lien entre les significations partagées entre le jeune enfant et l’adulte et la capacité de l’enfant à communiquer de manière intentionnelle via des gestes. En nous appuyant sur l’approche de la Pragmatique de l’Objet (Moro & Rodríguez, 2005), nous suggérons que les connaissances concernant l’usage culturel de l’objet que construit progressivement l’enfant représentent un type de significations que l’enfant partage avec autrui. 12 dyades mère-enfant ont été enregistrées à l’aide d’une caméra lors d’interactions avec quatre objets. Les observations ont eu lieu au domicile des familles et ont été conduites chaque deuxième mois lorsque les enfants ont été âgés de 8 à 16 mois (groupe 1) et de 16 à 24 mois (groupe 2). Les observations ont été codées pour le niveau de maîtrise de l’usage culturel par l’enfant ainsi que pour la production de gestes par l’enfant et par l’adulte. Nous avons trouvé que plus l’enfant maîtrise les usages culturels des objets, plus il produit de gestes, et plus ces gestes remplissent une fonction communicative explicite. Concernant les gestes de l’adulte, les résultats dévoilent que plus l’enfant maîtrise les usages conventionnels des objets, plus l’adulte adresse des gestes communicatifs à l’enfant, plus ses gestes sont produits de manière complexe et plus l’intention des gestes communicatifs de l’adulte est complexe. Pris ensemble, ces résultats suggèrent que le partage de significations sur l’usage culturel des objets représente un type de connaissances communes qui permettent au bébé et à ses protagonistes de communiquer.

Neuropsychiatrie de l'Enfance et de l'Adolescence, 2009

Le but de cet article est de présenter l'autoquestionnaire américain de McHale permettant l'évalu... more Le but de cet article est de présenter l'autoquestionnaire américain de McHale permettant l'évaluation de la qualité du coparentage ainsi qu'un premier pas en direction de sa validation structurelle et de construit en langue française. Quarante et une familles suisses francophones et 84 familles nordaméricaines ont rempli ce questionnaire ainsi qu'un autre portant sur leur satisfaction conjugale (Dyadic Adjustment Scale [DAS]). Les résultats des familles suisses correspondent aux résultats américains : d'une part, la distribution des items en quatre facteurs (intégrité familiale, conflit, affection et dénigrement) est retrouvée et, d'autre part, un lien relatif entre la qualité du coparentage et celle des relations conjugales est observé. Ce deuxième résultat confirme la validité de construit du questionnaire, vu le lien reconnu entre ces deux sous-systèmes. Étant donné l'influence de la qualité du coparentage sur le développement socio-affectif de l'enfant, disposer d'un outil permettant son évaluation, dans ses aspects tant positifs (soutien, chaleur, etc.) que négatifs (dénigrement, conflit, etc.), est un atout important aussi bien en recherche qu'en clinique.

Research with typically developing children suggests a strong positive relation between early ges... more Research with typically developing children suggests a strong positive relation between early gesture use and subsequent vocabulary development. In this study, we ask whether gesture production plays a similar role for children with autism spectrum disorder. We observed 23 18-month-old typically developing children and 23 30-month-old children with autism spectrum disorder interact with their caregivers (Communication Play Protocol) and coded types of gestures children produced (deictic, give, conventional, and iconic) in two communicative contexts (commenting and requesting). One year later, we assessed children’s expressive vocabulary, using Expressive Vocabulary Test. Children with autism spectrum disorder showed significant deficits in gesture production, particularly in deictic gestures (i.e. gestures that indicate objects by pointing at them or by holding them up). Importantly, deictic gestures—but not other gestures—predicted children’s vocabulary 1 year later regardless of communicative context, a pattern also found in typical development. We conclude that the production of deictic gestures serves as a stepping-stone for vocabulary development.

Typically-developing (TD) children frequently refer to objects uniquely in gesture. Parents trans... more Typically-developing (TD) children frequently refer to objects uniquely in gesture. Parents translate these gestures into words, facilitating children’s acquisition of these words (Goldin-Meadow et al. in Dev Sci 10(6):778–785, 2007). We ask whether this pattern holds for children with autism (AU) and with Down syndrome (DS) who show delayed vocabulary development. We observed 23 children with AU, 23 with DS, and 23 TD children with their parents over a year. Children used gestures to indicate objects before labeling them and parents translated their gestures into words. Importantly, children benefited from this input, acquiring more words for the translated gestures than the not translated ones. Results highlight the role contingent parental input to child gesture plays in language development of children with developmental disorders.

Early spontaneous gesture, specifically deictic gesture, predicts subsequent vocabulary developme... more Early spontaneous gesture, specifically deictic gesture, predicts subsequent vocabulary development in typically developing (TD) children. Here, we ask whether deictic gesture plays a similar role in predicting later vocabulary size in children with Down Syndrome (DS), who have been shown to have difficulties in speech production, but strengths in spontaneous gesture and baby sign use. We compared the gestures and baby signs produced by twenty-three children with DS (Mage = ;) and twenty-three TD children (Mage = ;), in relation to their expressive spoken vocabulary size one year later. Children with DS showed significant deficits in gesture production, particularly for deictic gestures, but strengths in baby sign production, compared to their typically developing peers. More importantly, it was the baby signs produced by children with DS, but not deictic gestures, that predicted their spoken vocabulary size one year later. Our results further highlight the important role baby signs can play in language development in children with developmental disorders.

Encyclopedia of Language Development

Developmental psychology researchers examine the temporal relationships of social and communicati... more Developmental psychology researchers examine the temporal relationships of social and communicative behav- iors, such as how a child responds to a name call, to understand early typical and atypical development and to discover early signs of autism and developmental delay. These related behaviors occur together or within close temporal proximity, forming unique patterns and relationships of interest. However, the task of finding these early signs, which are in the form of atypical behavioral patterns, becomes more challenging when behaviors of multiple children at different ages need to be compared with each other in search of generalizable patterns. The ability to visually explore the temporal relationships of behaviors, including flexible redefinition of closeness, over multiple social interaction sessions with children of different ages, can make such knowledge extraction easier. We have de- signed a visualization tool called TipoVis that helps psychology researchers visually explore the temporal patterns of social and communicative behaviors. We present two case studies to show how TipoVis helped two researchers derive new understandings of their data.

Gestures are the first forms of conventional communication that young children develop in order t... more Gestures are the first forms of conventional communication that young children develop in order to intentionally convey a specific message. However, at first, infants rarely communicate successfully with their gestures, prompting caregivers to interpret them. Although the role of caregivers in early communication development has been examined, little is known about how caregivers attribute a specific communicative function to infants’ gestures. In this study, we argue that caregivers rely on the knowledge about the referent that is shared with infants in order to interpret what communicative function infants wish to convey with their gestures. We videotaped interactions from six caregiver-infant dyads playing with toys when infants were 8, 10, 12, 14, and 16 months old. We coded infants’ gesture production and we determined whether caregivers interpreted those gestures as conveying a clear communicative function or not; we also coded whether infants used objects according to their conventions of use as a measure of shared knowledge about the referent. Results revealed an association between infants’ increasing knowledge of object use and maternal interpretations of infants’ gestures as conveying a clear communicative function. Our findings emphasize the importance of shared knowledge in shaping infants’ emergent communicative skills.

B ates and colleagues' influential model of the emer gence of intentional communication in infanc... more B ates and colleagues' influential model of the emer gence of intentional communication in infancy sug gests that infants' first gestures instrumentalize the other in order to obtain a desired goal Bates, Benigni, Bretherton, Camaioni & Volterra, 1979). Relying on Piaget's concept of mean end differentia tion, Bates et al. argued that intentional communication in infancy functions as a social tool use, in analogy to tool use that represents a major psychological achievement in the preverbal stage Bates et al., 1979). In this article, we claim that apprehending intentional communication uniquely from an instrumental perspec tive does not allow accessing the cognitive processing required for successful communication. Relying on an inferential model of communication (e. g. , we support that communication involves accessing the other's communicative intention in order to determine the meaning of his or her communicative acts. We use Clark's concept of 'common ground ' (1996) in order to account for the process that allows protagonists to access their respective communicative intentions. Common ground being the pool of meanings and experience shared between protagonists, they become able to rely on such shared knowledge in order to access each other's communicative intentions and thus reach successful communication. In quest of a model which accounts for the role of shared meanings in early psychological functioning, we addressed the cul tural historical theory by Vygotsky and particularly the key concept of semiotic mediation of the psyche (Vygotsky, 1935(Vygotsky, /1987. However, as it will be further developed, Vygotsky did not apprehend the preverbal development as semiotically mediated. It is in the approach of Object Pragmatics (Moro & Rodriguez, 2005) -relying and extending Vygotsky's hypotheses -that we found a theoretical account of how meaning is being constructed and shared in the pre verbal stage. This approach and its key concept of 'con ventional use of objects' represent the theoretical frame work underlying the semiotic perspective on intention al communication in infancy that we suggest in this arti cle. Our argumentation in favor of such an approach is illustrated by two short examples of gestures produced respectively by a 12 and a 16 months old child in order to communicate intentionally to an adult.

Pour que deux protagonistes parviennent à communiquer, ils doivent non seulement partager les sig... more Pour que deux protagonistes parviennent à communiquer, ils doivent non seulement partager les signes verbaux et/ou non verbaux qu’ils utilisent, mais ils doivent également parvenir à accéder à l’intention communicative de chacun. Ce dernier aspect de la communication a été intimement lié aux significations et aux connaissances que les protagonistes partagent (angl. common ground). Malgré le fait que l’importance des significations partagées ait été soulignée dans la littérature concernant la communication entre adultes, cet aspect n’a pas été étudié en ce qui concerne le développement précoce de la communication. Dans le présent travail, nous suggérons d’investiguer le lien entre les significations partagées entre le jeune enfant et l’adulte et la capacité de l’enfant à communiquer de manière intentionnelle via des gestes. En nous appuyant sur l’approche de la Pragmatique de l’Objet (Moro & Rodríguez, 2005), nous suggérons que les connaissances concernant l’usage culturel de l’objet que construit progressivement l’enfant représentent un type de significations que l’enfant partage avec autrui. 12 dyades mère-enfant ont été enregistrées à l’aide d’une caméra lors d’interactions avec quatre objets. Les observations ont eu lieu au domicile des familles et ont été conduites chaque deuxième mois lorsque les enfants ont été âgés de 8 à 16 mois (groupe 1) et de 16 à 24 mois (groupe 2). Les observations ont été codées pour le niveau de maîtrise de l’usage culturel par l’enfant ainsi que pour la production de gestes par l’enfant et par l’adulte. Nous avons trouvé que plus l’enfant maîtrise les usages culturels des objets, plus il produit de gestes, et plus ces gestes remplissent une fonction communicative explicite. Concernant les gestes de l’adulte, les résultats dévoilent que plus l’enfant maîtrise les usages conventionnels des objets, plus l’adulte adresse des gestes communicatifs à l’enfant, plus ses gestes sont produits de manière complexe et plus l’intention des gestes communicatifs de l’adulte est complexe. Pris ensemble, ces résultats suggèrent que le partage de significations sur l’usage culturel des objets représente un type de connaissances communes qui permettent au bébé et à ses protagonistes de communiquer.