Background and purpose: In developmental process, children use gestures for communication. One of these gestures is reaching which has various communicative functions. The purpose of this research was to investigate the development of reaching and its communicative functions in normally developed children aged 8-12 months whose language was Persian.
Materials and methods: This longitudinal, prospective observational research included nine non-randomized normally developed children with Persian language. Observations of mother-child interaction at home were conducted by semi-structural play environment and the frequency of target behavior was estimated.
Results: The mean values for age of the emergence and consistent use of the reaching gesture were 8 months and 11 days and 9 month and 11 days, respectively. Behavior regulation was found to be the communicative function of reaching at this age range (P<0.001). The Frequency of this gesture increased during five consecutive months (P<0.001).
Conclusion: The results showed that reaching is probably one of the first gestures formed in Persian speaking children and its main function is behavioral regulation of their partners.