DISPLACED COMMUNICATION IN A SELF-STYLED GESTURE SYSTEM - POINTING AT THE NONPRESENT

The ability to refer to objects or events that are not in the here and now is widely recognized as an important feature of language, one that sets it apart from other forms of communication. The purpose of this article is to determine whether a deaf child who was not exposed to a usable model of a conventional language could use his self-styled communication system to refer to objects that were out of his perceptual field. We found that, beginning at the age of 3 years and 3 months, the deaf child consistently and reliably used gesture to refer to objects that were not present in the room. Although delayed with respect to the onset of displaced communication in hearing children, the deaf child's use of gesture to refer to nonpresent objects developed despite the fact that his hearing mother rarely used her spontaneous gestures for this purpose. Thus, the techniques necessary to communicate about the "there-and-then" appear to be so fundamental to human language that they can be reinvented by a child who does not have access to a culturally shared linguistic system.