title: Is early joint attention associated with school-age pragmatic language?
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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, USA Department of Psychology, City University of New York, New York, USA kgillyn@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Kristen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Gillespie-Lynch
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, USA.
authors.forename: Allie
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Khalulyan
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, USA.
authors.forename: Mithi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Del Rosario
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, USA.
authors.forename: Brigid
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: McCarthy
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, USA.
authors.forename: Lovella
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Gomez
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, USA.
authors.forename: Marian
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sigman
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, USA.
authors.forename: Ted
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hutman
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D001288:Attention; D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D035781:Siblings / Q000523:psychology
keywords: Autism; infant siblings; joint attention; pragmatic language; structural language