title: Situational and psychosocial factors mediating coordinated joint attention with augmentative and alternative communication systems with beginning communicators without disabilities.
abstract: This study examined how infants' age, joint attention (JA) skills, caregiver ratings of language and temperament, and caregiver JA style related to JA in a structured literacy task with an augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) system. Sixteen infants (mean = 10.6 months) without disabilities participated in two storybook reading interactions with an experimenter in two conditions where the AAC system was either aligned or divided from the experimenter's eye gaze. Individual differences in JA skills, caregiver JA style, and temperament were associated with coordinated JA across both conditions. The findings suggest it is important to examine both extrinsic and intrinsic factors, which may not only reduce attention demands but also mediate the success of JA interactions with AAC systems.
authors: School of Hearing, Speech and Language Sciences,, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio 45701, USA. benigno@ohio.edu
authors: Joann P
authors: JP
authors: Benigno
authors: Jamie L
authors: JL
authors: Bennett
authors: John W
authors: JW
authors: McCarthy
authors: Julia L
authors: JL
authors: Smith