Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jan 4, 2026

Behavioral Assessment of Hearing in 2 to 4 Year-old Children: A Two-interval, Observer-based Procedure Using Conditioned Play-based Responses
14:05

Behavioral Assessment of Hearing in 2 to 4 Year-old Children: A Two-interval, Observer-based Procedure Using Conditioned Play-based Responses

Published on: January 23, 2017

29.6K

What leads to coordinated attention in parent-toddler interactions? Children's hearing status matters

Chi-Hsin Chen1, Irina Castellanos1,2, Chen Yu3

  • 1Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA.

Developmental Science
|November 5, 2019
PubMed

Insights

Children with prelingual hearing loss use gaze and actions to follow parent attention, similar to hearing peers. This highlights the flexible development of coordinated attention in toddlers.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental psychology
  • Audiology
  • Cognitive neuroscience

Background:

  • Coordinated attention is crucial for child development.
  • Prelingual hearing loss can impact social-emotional and cognitive development.
  • Understanding attention coordination in hearing-impaired children is vital.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate how prelingual hearing loss affects coordinated attention in toddlers during object play.
  • To compare attention-seeking strategies between children with and without hearing loss.
  • To explore the role of gaze and manual actions in joint attention.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized head-mounted eye-trackers to monitor gaze patterns in toddlers and parents.
  • Analyzed gaze duration, face looking proportions, and object-based attention.
  • Assessed joint attention to shared objects and cues used to follow parental attention.

Main Results:

  • Toddlers with hearing loss showed comparable overall gaze patterns to normal-hearing peers.
  • Hearing status did not influence the likelihood of shared object attention.
  • Children with hearing loss utilized both gaze and hand actions, while normal-hearing children primarily used hand actions to follow parental attention.

Conclusions:

  • Developing systems demonstrate flexibility in achieving coordinated attention despite hearing impairment.
  • Multiple sensory and motor pathways can support joint attention development.
  • Findings underscore the robustness of early social communication development.

Keywords:
children with hearing losscoordinated attentioneye-trackinggaze followingparent-child interactions

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