Pecora, Giulia, Bellagamba, Francesca, Focaroli, Valentina, Paoletti, Melania, Ciolli, Mariarosaria, Iaboni, Elisa, Palladino, Noemi, Di Prete, Alice, Farrow, Claire, Shapiro, Laura, Galloway, Amy T., Chiarotti, Flavia, Gasparini, Corinna, Caravale, Barbara, Gastaldi, Serena and Addesi, Elsa (2026). Self-feeding and Communicative Development From 12 to 24 Months of Age: An Observational Study. Child Development , pp. 1-17.
Abstract
This study examined the relations between independent eating and communicative development, both concurrently and longitudinally, using observational methods. In total, 182 Italian mother-infant pairs (Mage = 12.33; 48% females; 100% White) participated from 2020 to 2023. Infants’ gestures, vocalizations, and self-feeding episodes were coded during mealtimes at 12 months. Mothers reported on language development at 12, 18, and 24 months. Self-feeding was concurrently and positively associated with infants’ deictic gestures and simple vocalizations during the meal. Notably, self-feeding at 12 months was positively related to sentence production reported by mothers at 24 months (but not to parent-reported vocabulary size at 12, 18, or 24 months). The results suggest potential language benefits from allowing infants an active role during the mealtime.
| Publication DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1093/chidev/aacaf003 |
|---|---|
| Divisions: | College of Health & Life Sciences > School of Psychology College of Health & Life Sciences > Aston Institute of Health & Neurodevelopment (AIHN) College of Health & Life Sciences |
| Funding Information: | The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Department of Dynamic and Clinical Psychology, and Health Studies of Sapienza University of Rome (Prot. N.0000315 of 14/04/2020, Prot. N. 0001209 of 15/12/2020) and by the Commission for Ethics and Integrity in Research of the National Research Council (Prot. n.00721482019 of 18/10/2019, Prot. n. 0028810 of 23/04/2021). Financial support was provided by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca), Progetti di Rilevante Interesse Nazionale(PRIN 2017, grant number 2017WH8B84) and by the European Union Next Generation EU, Mission 4 Component 1 CUP “Sapienza” B53D23014820006, CUP “CNR” B53D23014810006, CUP MASTER B53D23014810006 [grant number 2022S8PEY7]. For their essential support during the recruitment, we are grateful to: Associazione Culturale Pediatri, Sergio Conti Nibali, Lorenzo Calia, and Giulia Basili of the magazine “UPPA Magazine,” Opera Nazionale Montessori, Sara Bettacchini (Associazione Culturale “Nate dalla Luna”), Bruna Sciotti e Tiziana Notarantonio (Centro Medico Pediatrico La Stella), Emilia Alvaro, Franco De Luca, Stefano Falcone, Francesco Gesualdo, Lucio Piermarini, Laura Reali, Paloma Boni, Elisa De Filippi, Stefania Grande, Chiara Guarino, Luigi Macchitella, Ada Maffei, Vito Minonne, Federico Sale, Giovanna Vitelli, Associazione “Millemamme,” Autosvezzamento.it. We warmly thank all the parents and the children who participated in the study: without their continuous cooperation this study would not have been possible. |
| Additional Information: | Copyright © The Author(s) 2026. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Research in Child Development. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | infants,self-feeding,language,communication,child-directed speech |
| Publication ISSN: | 0009-3920 |
| Data Access Statement: | The data necessary to reproduce the analyses presented here are not publicly accessible. The analytic code necessary to reproduce the analyses presented in this paper is not publicly accessible. The materials necessary to attempt to replicate the findings presented here are not publicly accessible. The analyses presented here were not preregistered. |
| Last Modified: | 20 Feb 2026 12:01 |
| Date Deposited: | 13 Oct 2025 16:32 |
| Full Text Link: | |
| Related URLs: |
https://academi ... acaf003/8444659
(Publisher URL) |
PURE Output Type: | Article |
| Published Date: | 2026-01-29 |
| Published Online Date: | 2026-01-29 |
| Accepted Date: | 2025-09-24 |
| Authors: |
Pecora, Giulia
Bellagamba, Francesca Focaroli, Valentina Paoletti, Melania Ciolli, Mariarosaria Iaboni, Elisa Palladino, Noemi Di Prete, Alice Farrow, Claire ( 
0000-0003-3745-6610)
Shapiro, Laura (
0000-0002-3276-457X)
Galloway, Amy T. Chiarotti, Flavia Gasparini, Corinna Caravale, Barbara Gastaldi, Serena Addesi, Elsa |
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