These observations indicate that anterior EEG asymmetry may be a marker of motivation and emotion processes that refract the autism taxon into important individual differences in social presentation among higher functioning children.
Current research suggests that the extent to which child-caregiver dyads engage in interactions involving episodes of joint or coordinated attention can have a significant impact on early lexical acquisition. In this regard it has been recognized that individual differences in early developing child communication skills, such as capacity to follow gaze and early infant language, may contribute to these child-caregiver interactional patterns, as well as to subsequent language development. To address this expectation, 21 infant-parent dyads were recruited for participation in a longitudinal study. Early infant language, responding to joint attention skill, and cognitive development were assessed at 12 months of age. Child-caregiver joint attention episodes, as well as responding to joint attention skill and child language, were assessed at 18 months of age. Developmental outcome, using the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories and the Bayley Scales of Infant Development-II, was assessed at 21 and 24 months of age. Consistent with previous findings, results indicated that individual differences in child-caregiver episodes of joint attention were related to language at 18 months. In addition, though, 12 month vocabulary and responding to joint attention skill were associated with some aspects of 18 month child-caregiver interaction, as well as subsequent language development. In general, 12 month child measures and 18 month child-caregiver interaction measures appeared to make unique contributions to language development in this sample. These results suggest the need to further consider the role of infant skills in the connections between child-caregiver joint attention episodes and language development.Language development occurs within a social context. Effective communicative interactions involve continuous modification to allow for efficient processing of information. Because infants and toddlers are limited in their capacity to effectively process information, adults tend to be the agents of modification, using simplified speech and clear acts of reference in combination to format communication and facilitate lan-
The ability to coordinate expressive behaviors is crucial to the development of social and emotional communication. Coordination involves systematic sequencing of behaviors from two different modalities that have some temporal overlap. A bootstrapping procedure was used to determine whether preverbal 3- and 6-month-old infants sequence vocalizations, gazes at their mothers' faces, and facial expressions into pairs of coordinated patterns nonrandomly. Smiles and frowns were highly coordinated with vocalizations. Smiles were also coordinated with gazes at mothers' faces, which became stronger with age. Vocalizations were not coordinated with gazes at mothers' faces. These findings illustrate the manner in which infants temporally coordinate communicative actions and provide new evidence that facial expressions (particularly smiles) are central to early infant communications.
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