title: Effects of different attentional cues on responding to joint attention in younger siblings of children with autism spectrum disorders.
abstract: We compared responding to joint attention (RJA) in younger siblings of children with ASD (SIBS-ASD; n = 46) and younger siblings of children developing typically (SIBS-TD; n = 35). Children were tested between 12 and 23 months of age in a situation in which an experimenter directed the child's attention to one of 8 targets. Each child responded to 10 different combinations of verbal and nonverbal cues containing varying levels of attention-specifying information. SIBS-ASD had significantly lower overall RJA scores than SIBS-TD. Moderately redundant cues were most difficult for SIBS-ASD relative to SIBS-TD; adding a point to moderately redundant cues improved RJA for SIBS-ASD, bringing them to a level of RJA commensurate with SIBS-TD.
authors.affiliation: Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA.
authors.forename: Alison G
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Presmanes
authors.forename: Tedra A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Walden
authors.forename: Wendy L
authors.initials: WL
authors.lastname: Stone
authors.forename: Paul J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Yoder
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention; D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D009633:Nonverbal Communication; D015588:Observer Variation; D035781:Siblings; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014705:Verbal Behavior