Revealing infant communicative competencies : Early Social Communication Scale as an example of the measurement instrument

The aim of the present analysis is to describe the developmental trajectory of the infant and toddler communicative competencies. Turn-taking, gaze-following, joint attention and pointing gestures are the most important expressions of these competencies that could be measured by the Early Social Communication Scale (ESCS Mundy et al., 2003). We present the results of a research conducted with 358 one-year old children and obtained through the Polish version of this scale (ESCS). The validity and reliability of the Polish version of ESCS proved to be satisfactory. The obtained results were analyzed emphasizing the role of early communicative competencies in the further social, linguistic and cognitive development of a child and indicating the domain of psychological practice where ESCS could be implemented.