Over recent decades much research has analyzed the relevance of 9- to 20- month-old infants’ early imitation skills (object- and language-based imitation) for language development. Yet there have been few systematic comparisons of the joint relevance of these imitative behaviors later on in development. This correlational study investigated whether multimodal imitation (gestural, prosodic, and lexical components) and object-based imitation are related to narratives and sociopragmatics in preschoolers. Thirty-one typically developing 3- to 4-year-old children performed four tasks to assess multimodal imitation, object-based imitation, narrative abilities, and sociopragmatic abilities. Results revealed that both narrative and sociopragmatic skills were significantly related to multimodal imitation, but not to object-based imitation, indicating that preschoolers’ ability to imitate socially relevant multimodal cues is strongly related to language and sociocommunicative skills. Therefore, this evidence supports a broader conceptualization of imitation behaviors in the field of language development that systematically integrates prosodic, gestural, and verbal linguistic patterns.

近几十年来，许多研究分析了 9 至 20 个月大的婴儿早期模仿技能（基于对象和语言的模仿）与语言发展的相关性。然而，很少有人对这些模仿行为在后期发展中的联合相关性进行系统比较。这项相关研究调查了多模态模仿（手势、韵律和词汇成分）和基于对象的模仿是否与学龄前儿童的叙事和社会语用学有关。31 名发育正常的 3 至 4 岁儿童执行了四项任务，以评估多模态模仿、基于对象的模仿、叙述能力和社会语用能力。结果表明，叙事和社会语用技能都与多模态模仿显着相关，但与基于对象的模仿无关，表明学龄前儿童模仿社会相关多模态线索的能力与语言和社会交际技能密切相关。因此，这一证据支持在语言发展领域对模仿行为进行更广泛的概念化，系统地整合韵律、手势和语言模式。