Joint Attention Episodes and Language Skills in Children With Language Delays

The importance of joint attention and joint engagement to language development in typically developing children and children with autism is well understood; however, the importance of these same skills in children with language delays is often overlooked. The goals of this study were to describe joint attention, joint engagement, and language development in children with language delays and describe how these constructs are related.

Six mother-child dyads were recorded playing for 15 min, and the middle 10 min of their play was coded for acts of joint attention, joint attention episodes (JAEs), and use of language. Children's receptive and expressive vocabulary were gathered from parents' responses to the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Developmental Inventory.

Results were analyzed using Ordinal Pattern Analysis (Crossed Orderings) in Observation Oriented Modeling software. Observation Oriented Modeling is a recent alternative to traditional inferential statistics. A modest pattern was found: The children with more initiating joint attention had more receptive vocabulary, expressive vocabulary, and a higher mean length of utterance (MLU). In contrast, the pattern of greater responding joint attention and greater language skills was quite weak. Stronger patterns were found as the dyad had more engagement in JAEs, the children had higher expressive vocabulary, receptive vocabulary, and MLU. Finally, modest patterns were found: The longer the children were engaged in JAEs, the longer their utterances became.

Results suggested that for children with language delays, it was not important who initiated and who responded in JAEs. If the child entered into JAEs, they had better language outcomes.