Developing language in a developing body: the relationship between motor development and language development.

"During the first eighteen months of life, infants acquire and refine a
whole set of new motor skills that significantly change the ways in
which the body moves in and interacts with the environment. In this
review article, I argue that motor acquisitions provide infants with an
opportunity to practice skills relevant to language acquisition before
they are needed for that purpose; and that the emergence of new motor
skills changes infants’ experience with objects and people in ways that
are relevant for both general communicative development and the
acquisition of language. Implications of this perspective for current
views of co-occurring language and motor impairments and for
methodology in the field of child language research are also considered."