P. Pettenati

Gesture and Symbolic Representation in Italian and English-Speaking Canadian 2-Year-Olds.

Analyses of elicited pantomime, primarily of English-speaking children, show that preschool-aged children are more likely to symbolically represent an object with gestures depicting an objects form rather than its function. In contrast, anecdotal reports of spontaneous gesture production in younger children suggest that children use multiple representational techniques. This study examined the spontaneous gestures of sixty-four 2-year-old Italian children and English-speaking Canadian children, primarily from middle-class Caucasian families. The Italian children produced twice as many gestures as Canadian children in a picture-naming task but produced a similar range of representational techniques. Two-year-olds were equally likely to produce gestures depicting function as form. These data suggest young childrens communicative skills are supported by a symbolic capacity that reflects contextual communicative demands.

Toddlers’ Participation in Joint Activities with Peers in nido

Socialization with peers is one of the main goals of early childhood education and care outside of the family but the processes of young children’s sociality in ECEC centres are still to be fully understood. This chapter presents an analysis of toddler’s sociality with peers during their everyday life in an ECEC centre, based on ethnographic data (videos and written notes) collected during a whole morning within the toddler program of a municipal nido in Italy. It highlights that in a group situation children’s attention is aroused by a multiplicity of social stimuli and that they often participate in joint activities with peers. The analysis of toddlers’ participation shows that both social and cognitive processes converge in children’s sociality with peers and contribute to make the ECEC experience an important step in the course of their life. Implications for educational practices in ECEC centres are also discussed.