Here's Looking at You!!

This Dad and his child are engaged in what we call joint attention. I will grant you it is pretty early on but the skill does tend to emerge between 6-14 months. It is also another one of those skills we take for granted because most of us have never heard of it before and we do not know what it means.

Joint attention is the co-ordinating of the attention of two or more persons towards an object or event and occurs every 30 seconds or more. Poor joint attention is linked to poor language development and communication skills. Without joint attention, one does not receive the message. It is an essential part of the executive functioning skill of attention, which includes joint attention, eye contact, listening, and participating.

Joint attention is important in helping people to communicate with others all through life. Children with autism frequently have delays in developing joint attention skills which in turn delays the development of language skills. It has been found that children with autism who are able to use spoken language by the time they are 5 generally have much better success in school, in social relationships, and in their adult lives than those who do not develop communication skills as a preschooler.

TYPES OF JOINT ATTENTION

1.  Conventional - words/gestures to mark an object

Vocalizing attention

Mutual gazing

Inter-locator gazing

2.  Literal - drawing attention to object directly

Pointing to get or share attention

Reaching/holding a hand out toward an object

Indicating gestures (head, hand, or body)

Showing

3.  From fact - What I see or you see to link to

Thought / concept-driven (ToM Theory of Mind)

What I see >What I am thinking about

JOINT ATTENTION NORMS

Emerges                   6-14 months                              

                         Triad of infant/person/object

                         After learning to regulate

                         interpersonal relationships

1.9-2.3/min               9-15 months (A. Durante)

4-11/min                   14-32 months

0.83/min                    Development language delay

0.49/min                    Autism - there was not a decrease

                                   in gaze to gaze interval

• There is a significant lack of positive affect coordinated with a gaze.
• Adults thus initiated a decrease in joint attention - which decreased the gaze-to-gaze interval.

2.7-4.4/min                   Adults every 15-20 seconds  (T. Arora)

Autism deficits in social cognition (eye gaze perception, joint attention, literalness, extreme rule-based systemizing, and ToM) persist across the lifespan but are often camouflaged by learning compensatory strategies.

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AUTHORS

Marie Lewis is an author, consultant, and national speaker on best practices in education advocacy. She is a parent of 3 children and a Disability Case Manager, Board Certified Education Advocate, and Behavior Specialist Consultant. She has assisted in the development of thousands of IEPs nationally and consults on developing appropriately individualized IEPs that are outcome-based vs legally sufficient. She brings a great depth of expertise, practical experience, and compassion to her work as well as expert insight, vision, and systemic thinking. She is passionate and funny and she always inspires and informs.

MJ Gore has an MEd in counseling and a degree in elementary education and natural sciences. She worked as a life-skills and learning support teacher She has been honored with the receipt of the Presidential Volunteer Service Award. She is the Director and on the faculty at the National Special Education Advocacy Institute. Her passion is social justice, especially in the area of education. She is a Board Certified Education Advocate who teaches professional advocates, educators, and clinicians the best practices in education advocacy.