Maternal naming of object wholes versus parts to preverbal infants: A fine-grained analysis of scaffolding at 6–8 months

• Very early during infants’ word-mapping development maternal scaffolding is multifaceted.
• It assists in infants’ disambiguation of names for object wholes versus parts.
• Mothers of preverbal infants of 6–8 months move object wholes more often than they do object parts during naming.
• During naming, mothers also predominantly shake or loom object wholes in synchrony with their naming more often than object parts.
• This highlights object wholes more than parts in infants’ visual field.

Maternal naming of object wholes versus parts was examined during interactive free-play. Forty-two Caucasian- and Hispanic-American mothers and their preverbal infants of 6–8 months were video-taped interacting naturally during toy play. For the purpose of fine-grained analyses, maternal naming of object wholes versus parts were coded for bimodal naming (e.g., temporal synchrony) and object motion (e.g., shaking) to examine any differences in these measures across the two word types. The results revealed that during naming, mothers simultaneously moved object wholes more often than they did object parts to highlight the object wholes in their infants’ visual field. To further highlight object wholes during naming, mothers predominantly shook or loomed object wholes in synchrony with their naming more often than object parts. These empirical findings suggest that very early during infants’ word-mapping development, maternal scaffolding is manifold and assists in infants’ disambiguation of names for object wholes versus parts.