Is early joint attention associated with school-age pragmatic language?

Kristen Gillespie-Lynch; Allie Khalulyan; Mithi Del Rosario; Brigid McCarthy; Lovella Gomez; Marian Sigman; Ted Hutman

doi:10.1177/1362361313515094

Is early joint attention associated with school-age pragmatic language?

Autism. 2015 Feb;19(2):168-77. doi: 10.1177/1362361313515094. Epub 2013 Dec 18.

Authors

Kristen Gillespie-Lynch¹, Allie Khalulyan², Mithi Del Rosario², Brigid McCarthy², Lovella Gomez², Marian Sigman², Ted Hutman²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, USA Department of Psychology, City University of New York, New York, USA kgillyn@gmail.com.
² Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, USA.

Abstract

In order to evaluate evidence for the social-cognitive theory of joint attention, we examined relations between initiation of and response to joint attention at 12 and 18 months of age and pragmatic and structural language approximately 6 years later among children with and without autism spectrum disorder. Initiation of joint attention at 18 months was associated with structural, but not pragmatic, language for children with and without autism spectrum disorder. School-age children with autism exhibited difficulties with structural and pragmatic language relative to non-autistic siblings of children with autism and low-risk controls. No evidence of the broader autism phenotype was observed. These findings do not support the social-cognitive theory of joint attention.

Keywords: Autism; infant siblings; joint attention; pragmatic language; structural language.

Publication types

Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Age Factors
Attention*
Autistic Disorder / psychology*
Child
Female
Follow-Up Studies
Humans
Infant
Language*
Male
Siblings / psychology

Abstract

Publication types

MeSH terms

Grants and funding