ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the emergence of infants’ capacity to convey and comprehend object-focused messages and pays specific attention to how they begin to coordinate their attention to both people and objects, and to master the communicative functions of requesting and referring. It focuses on caregivers to describe their contribution to joint object involvement. The chapter explores how adults often enhance infants’ object interest with interpretations, scaffolds, and cultural props and plans. It examines how infants and caregivers structure episodes of joint object involvement. The chapter explains how they manage their communication, and their relative contributions to orchestrating communicative routines. It discusses various explanations for why and when object-focused communication emerges. As infants turn their attention from person engagement to joint engagement, their repertoire of communicative acts expands to include gestures such as pointing that serve to direct attention toward objects.
