Cascades of Learning Through Play: The Relation Between Infant Movement, Attention, and Language Production in the Second Year of Life

Motor development is not only a key foundation to how individuals engage in movement across the lifespan, but a means to learning and engagement in other developmental domains. Prior work has explored the relation between motor development and cognition through the lens of embodied cognition, linking movement to cognitive domains such as attention and language across various developmental periods in infancy. However, the relation between whole-body movement, attentional processes, and language development remains under-explored. The present study demonstrates that there are dynamic, moment-to-moment predictive relations between whole-body movement in toddlers and their attentional processes as well as their vocalizations. Unique combinations of movements across the whole body were found to predict vocal production and engaging in particular infant attentional states. Results are discussed in terms of how these three systems interact with one another and create potential developmental cascades within and across the domains of motor, attention, and language development.