This study examined the development of joint attention in 95 infants assessed between 9 and 18 months of age. Infants displayed significant test -retest reliability on measures of following gaze and gestures (responding to joint attention, RJA) and in their use of eye contact to establish social attention coordination (initiating joint attention, IJA). Infants displayed a linear, increasing pattern of age-related growth on most joint attention measures. However, IJA was characterized by a significant cubic developmental pattern. Infants with different rates of cognitive development exhibited different frequencies of joint attention acts at each age, but did not exhibit different agerelated patterns of development. Finally, 12-month RJA and 18-month IJA predicted 24-month language after controlling for general aspects of cognitive development.The human capacity for social attention coordination has been referred to as joint attention (Bakeman & Adamson, 1984;Bruner & Sherwood, 1983). Different behavioral manifestations of joint attention begin to emerge in the first 6 months of life (D'Entremont, Hains, & Muir, 1997;Farroni, Massaccesi, & Francesca, 2002;Morales, Mundy, & Rojas, 1998) and continue to develop at least through 3 years of age (Adamson, Bakeman, & Dekner, 2004;Carpenter, Nagell, & Tomasello, 1998). These different infant joint attention behaviors may be used for declarative and instrumental-imperative functions (Bates, Benigni, Bretherton, Camaioni, & Volterra, 1979), as well as to initiate or respond to bids in interactions with social partners (Seibert, Hogan, & Mundy, 1982).Various labels have been used to refer to these behavioral dimensions of infant joint attention (Carpenter et al., 1998). Here we adopt the nomenclature initially suggested by Seibert et al. (1982) that is currently widely used in the research literature as well as in multidimensional assessments of early social communication development (e.g., Fidler, Philofsky, Hepburn, & Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Peter Mundy, University of Miami, 5665 Ponce De Leon Blvd., Coral Gables, FL 33146. Electronic mail may be sent to pmundy@miami.edu. NIH Public Access Author ManuscriptChild Dev. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2009 March 11. Published in final edited form as:Child Dev. 2007 ; 78(3): 938-954. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2007.01042.x. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript Rogers, 2005;Henderson, Yoder, Yale, & McDuffie, 2002;Laing et al., 2002; Lord et al., 2002;Mundy, Sigman, Kasari, & Yirmiya, 1988;Smith & Ulvund, 2003;Wetherby, Allen, Cleary, Kublin, & Goldstein, 2002). Accordingly, responding to joint attention (RJA) refers to the ability to follow the direction of gaze and gestures of others, initiating joint attention (IJA) refers to the ability to use direction of gaze and gestures to direct the attention of others to spontaneously share experiences, initiating behavior regulation/requests (IBR) refers to the ability to use gaze and gestures to...

Infant joint attention has been observed to be related to social-emotional outcomes in at-risk children. To address whether this relation is also evident in typically developing children, 52 children were tested at 12, 15, 24, and 30 months to examine associations between infant joint attention and social outcomes. Twelve-month initiating and responding to joint attention were related to 30-month social competence and externalizing behavior, even when accounting for 15-month temperament ratings, 24-month cognition and language, and demographic variables. These results suggest that, in addition to associations with language and cognition, infant joint attention reflects robust aspects of development that are related to individual differences in the emergence of social and behavioral competence in childhood.

Little is known about variables that may contribute to individual differences in infant joint attention, or the coordination of visual attention with a social partner. Therefore, this study examined the contributions of caregiver behavior and temperament to infant joint attention development between 9 and 12 months. Data were collected from 57 infants using a caregiver–infant paradigm, an infant–tester paradigm, and a parent report of infant temperament. Nine‐month measures of caregiver scaffolding and infant initiating joint attention (IJA) with testers were significantly related to 12‐month infant IJA with testers. A temperament measure of positive emotional reactivity was related to 9‐month IJA, and a measure of negative emotional reactivity was related to 12‐month IJA. Temperament and caregiver scaffolding measures, however, were not associated with the development of infant responding to joint attention. These results further the understanding of the multiple processes that contribute to joint attention development in infancy, and support the hypothesis that initiating and responding measures tap different aspects of joint attention development.

Infant joint attention is related to behavioral and social outcomes, as well as language in childhood. Recent research and theory suggests that the relations between joint attention and social-behavioral outcomes may reflect the role of executive self-regulatory processes in the development of joint attention. To test this hypothesis two- studies were conducted. The first, cross-sectional study examined the development of responding to joint attention skill (RJA) in terms of increasing executive efficiency of responding between 9 and 18 months of age. The results indicated that development of RJA was characterized by a decreased latency to shift attention in following another person’s gaze and head turn, as well as an increase in the proportion of correct RJA responses exhibited by older infants. The second study examined the longitudinal relations between 12-month measures of responding to joint attention (RJA) and 36-month attention regulation in a delay of gratification task. The results indicated that responding to joint attention at 12-months was significantly related to children’s use of three types of self-regulation behaviors while waiting for a snack reward at 36 months of age. These observations are discussed in light of a developmental theory of attention regulation and joint attention in infancy.

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