Coordinated attention, declarative and imperative pointing in infants with and without Down syndrome: Sharing experiences with adults and peers

Abstract

The link between coordinated attention, imperative and declarative pointing was assessed in a longitudinal study. Four groups of infants were studied in interaction with their mothers, a same-aged peer and the peer's mother. Two groups of infants had Down syndrome (DS), one ( n = 11) with a mean mental age (MA) of 0;8.6 and the other ( n = 11) with an MA of 1;4.5. These infants were matched on MA with two groups ( n = 10 each) of typically developing (TD) infants. The following hypotheses were confirmed: (a) that infants with DS produce less coordinated attention and declaratives than typically developing infants, but a comparable number of imperatives; (b) that coordinated attention predicts declarative but not imperative pointing; and (c) that coordinated attention, imperative and declarative pointing should be higher with adults than with peers. Discussion centers on the implications of these findings for theories of early communication development and mental state awareness.

Joint Attention and Early Social Developmental Cascades in Neurogenetic Disorders

“…In contrast to these studies indicating strengths in joint attention, there are several studies that suggest initiating joint attention may be particularly difficult for infants with DS between 12 and 26 months (Legerstee & Fisher, 2008; Legerstee & Weintraub, 1997). In these studies, infants with DS were more likely to passively sharing attention to objects, rather than actively initiate an interaction by pointing to objects leading to fewer instances of initiating joint attention (Legerstee & Fisher, 2008; Legerstee & Weintraub, 1997).…”

“…In these studies, infants with DS were more likely to passively sharing attention to objects, rather than actively initiate an interaction by pointing to objects leading to fewer instances of initiating joint attention (Legerstee & Fisher, 2008; Legerstee & Weintraub, 1997). There are several potential reasons for these different findings.…”

“…There are several potential reasons for these different findings. Frist, Legerstee and colleagues (Legerstee & Fisher, 2008; Legerstee & Weintraub, 1997) coded joint attention during naturalistic play observations with the infant’s mother. Thus, unlike the studies using the Early Social Communication Scales, there is no standard administration or scoring.…”

Emotion Knowledge in Children and Adolescents With Down Syndrome: A New Methodological Approach

“…Likewise, though infants and young children with DS show signs of social imitation (Carvajal & Iglesias, 2002;Wright, Lewis, & Collis, 2006) and nonverbal communicative gesturing (Caselli, Vicari, Longobardi, Lami, & Pizolli, 1998;Franco & Wishart, 1995;Singer Harris, Bellugi, Bates, Jones, & Rossen, 1997), they show subtle atypicalities in such skills within certain contexts (i.e., more complex interactions; Adamson, Bakeman, Deckner, & Romski, 2009;object vs. social play;Fidler, Philofsky, Hepburn, Rogers, & Abbeduto, 2005;Wright et al, 2006;requesting vs. pointing;Kasari, Freeman, Mundy, & Sigman, 1995;Legerstee & Fisher, 2008). Further, though they demonstrate high levels of affect sharing, they may have difficulty applying their intersubjective skills to social-based learning (i.e., deciphering another's goal-directed intentions; Hahn, Fidler, Hepburn, & Rogers, 2013).…”

Prelinguistic human infants and great apes show different communicative strategies in a triadic request situation

“…First, imperative pointing seems to emerge before declarative pointing [9]. Second, infants with autism and infants with Down syndrome, who are known to suffer from socio-cognitive deficits, do not point declaratively but still engage in imperative pointing [2, 10]. …”