Joint Engagement and the Emergence of Language in Children with Autism and Down Syndrome

Abstract

Systematic longitudinal observations were made as typically-developing toddlers and young children with autism and with Down syndrome interacted with their caregivers in order to document how joint engagement developed over a year-long period and how variations in joint engagement experiences predicted language outcome. Children with autism displayed a persistent deficit in coordinated joint attention; children with Down syndrome were significantly less able to infuse symbols into joint engagement. For all groups, variations in amount of symbol-infused supported joint engagement, a state in which the child attended to a shared object and to language but not actively to the partner, contributed to differences in expressive and receptive language outcome, over and above initial language capacity. KeywordsAutism; Down syndrome; joint attention; language; parent-child interactionThe early development of joint engagement and the acquisition of language are usually intertwined. As infants acquire joint attention skills, they gain entrance into "primordial sharing situations" (Werner & Kaplan, 1963) that serve as "zones of proximal development" (Vygotsky, 1978) where caregivers can facilitate their introduction to symbols during affect-laden and intention-filled social interactions (Adamson, 1996;Hobson, 2000;Tomasello, 1995). Then, as the child acquires a vocabulary, the scope of joint engagement increasingly expands as the focus of shared attention is displaced from present objects to symbols that refer to them, to future and past events, and to internal states (Adamson & Bakeman, 2006). Developmental disorders may disrupt the mutual relation between joint attention and language. Problems sustaining joint attention may alter and even curtail a toddler's access to language facilitating interactions. For example, the early deficits in joint attention skills in young children with autism that have been documented in home videotapes (e.g., Baranek, 1999;Werner & Dawson, 2005), standardized tests (Lord, 1995;Mundy, Sigman, & Kasari, 1990; Wetherby, Watt, Morgan, & Shumway, 2007), screening questionnaires (Baron-Cohen et al., 1996;Robins, Fein, Barton, & Green, 2001), and laboratory-based studies (McArthur & Adamson, 1996;Sigman & Ruskin, 1999;Stone, Ousley, Yoder, Hogan, & Hepburn, 1997; see Leekam & Moore, 2001, for a review) likely play a pivotal role in their problems acquiring and using Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Lauren B. Adamson, Department of Psychology, Box 5010, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA 30302-5010, USA. Electronic mail may be sent via Internet to ladamson@gsu.edu. NIH Public AccessAuthor Manuscript J Autism Dev Disord. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2010 January 1. NIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript language (Charman, 2004;Dawson et al., 2004;Happe, 1998;McDuffie, Yoder, & Stone, 2005;Sigman & Ruskin, 1999, Smith, Mirenda, & Zaidman-Zait, 2007Toth, Munson, Meltzoff, & Dawson, 2006). Thus, although older estimate...

Intervention in Autism: Social Engagement Implemented by Caregivers

“…In addition, the emergence of coordinated joint engagement (CJE) was registered, with short duration only for the dyads with longer duration of SJE (D1, D4, D7), indicating that with adequate support, the child may go beyond the focus only on the object and incorporate the contributions of the adult, even though not explicitly recognizing the presence of the other person (Adamson et al, 2004). These results confirm those obtained by Adamson, Bakeman, Deckner and Romski (2009), indicating that children with autism show different degrees of SJE, and when verbal, the symbol is integrated into the interaction, either through the verbal expression of the child or the translation of the instructions of the caregiver into actions by the child.…”

“…For example, Kasari et al (2010) also used an adherence score for the treatment provided by the researchers, while the present study only considered the score that the caregivers attributed to themselves. A second limitation is the absence of language measures that differentiate the aspects of expression and comprehension, since the majority of children who receive the diagnosis of autism remain non-verbal (Adamson et al, 2009). …”

Using developmental trajectories to examine verbal and visuospatial short-term memory development in children and adolescents with Williams and Down syndromes

“…For instance, joint engagement behaviour in infants with DS has been mapped longitudinally (Adamson, Bakeman, Deckner, & Romski, 2009), while other authors have used cross-sectional approaches to plot the development of both lexical skills (Thomas et al, 2006), and facial processing abilities in individuals with WS. The latter authors observed that their sample, while often equivalent to TD controls in terms of overall performance on a number of facial processing tasks, showed patterns of development that were both delayed and deviant in comparison.…”

Comparação do léxico de crianças com Síndrome de Down e com desenvolvimento típico de mesma idade mental

“…Relacionado à forma de comunicação das crianças com SD, autores realizaram estudos enfocando diferentes objetivos quanto ao uso de gestos, considerando sua influência nas habilidades INTRODUÇÃO A síndrome de Down (SD) é a causa genética mais comum de deficiência intelectual. É prevista alteração global do desenvolvimento de crianças com SD que engloba as áreas motora, cognitiva, linguística, de autocuidados e socialização [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] . São esperadas características fenotípicas relacionadas ao comportamento de linguagem,…”

“…A literatura tem apresentado que a redução do vocabulário em indivíduos com SD pode ser decorrente do tempo de atenção diminuído, do déficit na memória de curto prazo, da memória fonológica, do atraso no desenvolvimento da função simbólica, das dificuldades para reconhecer regras gramaticais, das dificuldades na produção de fala, dos comportamentos mal-adaptativos, além de características específicas do processamento de informações auditivas e visuais nesta população 1,2, [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] . Quanto à correlação do desempenho dos participantes entre os testes aplicados (Tabela 3), verificou-se que houve correlação entre o desempenho da amostra total e de cada grupo quando comparado o desempenho no vocabulário expressivo (ABFW) 26 e receptivo (TVIP) 25 e esta correlação foi estatisticamente significante.…”