Individual differences and the development of joint attention in infancy - PubMed (original) (raw)

Individual differences and the development of joint attention in infancy

Peter Mundy et al. Child Dev. 2007 May-Jun.

Abstract

This study examined the development of joint attention in 95 infants assessed between 9 and 18 months of age. Infants displayed significant test-retest reliability on measures of following gaze and gestures (responding to joint attention, RJA) and in their use of eye contact to establish social attention coordination (initiating joint attention, IJA). Infants displayed a linear, increasing pattern of age-related growth on most joint attention measures. However, IJA was characterized by a significant cubic developmental pattern. Infants with different rates of cognitive development exhibited different frequencies of joint attention acts at each age, but did not exhibit different age-related patterns of development. Finally, 12-month RJA and 18-month IJA predicted 24-month language after controlling for general aspects of cognitive development.

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Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1

Illustrations of (a) responding to joint attention; (b) initiating joint attention — IJA – PS, “pointing”; (c1, c2, c3) IJA – EC, “alternating gaze”; (d) initiating behavior requests — IBR – PG, “pointing”; and (e) responding to behavior request from the Early Social Communication Scales (Mundy,Delgado et al., 2003; Seibert et al., 1982).

Figure 2

Figure 2

Comparison of age-related growth patterns for the frequency of initiating joint attention (IJA) and initiating behavior requests (IBR) bids (top) and a comparison of the age-related growth patterns for the frequency of responding to joint attention (RJA) and responding to behavior request (RBR) bids (bottom).

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