Establishment of Joint Attention in Dyads Involving Hearing Mothers of Deaf and Hearing Children, and Its Relation to Adaptive Social Behavior

Abstract

Mounting evidence points to joint attention as a mediating variable in children's adaptive behavior development. Joint attention in interactions between hearing mothers and congenitally deaf ( n = 27) and hearing ( n = 29) children, ages 18–36 months, was examined. All deaf children had severe to profound hearing loss. Mother-child interactions were coded for maternally initiated and child-initiated success rates in establishing joint attention; mothers completed ratings of their children's adaptive behavior. Hearing mother–deaf child dyads had significantly lower maternally initiated success rates. No significant between-group differences on child-initiated success rates were shown. Maternal ratings of adaptive behavior were significantly lower for deaf children, and related positively and significantly to both child-initiated and maternally initiated success rates. The findings suggest that mother-child interactions that are low in successful establishment of joint attention might mediate the development of socioemotional problems evident in deaf children with hearing families.

Parental Use of Multimodal Cues in the Initiation of Joint Attention as a Function of Child Hearing Status

“…Particularly in cases where there is little to no sign language used in a hearing-status mismatched parent-child dyad, as is often the case with children who are candidates for cochlear implantation, the establishment of joint attention can serve as an important scaffold for children to learn about communicative intent, as is the case for children in hearing-status matched dyads. Thus far, researchers have focused on hearing-mismatched parent-child dyads to identify strategies used by parents to engage children's attention (Gale & Schick, 2009;Lieberman et al, 2014), characterize parents' adaptive social behaviors (Nowakowski et al, 2009), and compare overall amounts of joint attention across dyad types (i.e., hearing parent-deaf child, hearing parent-hearing child, and deaf parent-deaf child) (Nowakowski et al, 2009;Spencer, 2004;Spencer et al, 1992). Although these studies generally include small sample sizes and children with highly heterogeneous hearing issues, their findings show that while hearing parents are sensitive to deaf children's communicative efforts, the overall rate of maternally initiated joint attention is lower in hearing status-mismatched dyads.…”

“…Why is this? The coding scheme employed in the present study is one that we have carefully constructed based on extensive prior research by others (Nowakowski et al, 2009;Tomasello & Farrar, 1986) and arguably captures what researchers intended when joint attention was initially documented and classified (e.g., Bakeman & Adamson, 1984). An issue for consideration in future research is whether episodes of joint attention are coded consistently across different labs.…”

“…Shared hearing status in parent-child dyads influences language learning, as evidenced by findings that children in deaf parent-deaf child dyads develop joint attention at rates similar to their typically hearing peers (Spencer, 2000). In contrast, children in hearing parent-deaf child dyads do not (Nowakowski et al, 2009).…”

Revisiting how we operationalize joint attention

“…In these instances, dyads engage in a free-play session with an adult, uninterrupted by prompting or technology. These interactions are typically recorded and coded offline, incorporating specific criteria for characterizing different components of the interaction, including bouts of joint attention (Bakeman & Adamson, 1984;de Barbaro et al, 2016d;Gale & Schick, 2009;Nowakowski et al, 2009;Salo et al, 2018;Tomasello & Farrar, 1986). The different protocols consist of components intended to provide guidance on codable criteria, with agreement between coders assessed via interrater reliability.…”

“…Here we introduce a coding protocol that integrates components of the different approaches to joint attention that we have outlined. In particular, the protocol is inspired by the work of Tomasello and Farrer (1986) and of Nowakowski et al (2009), with timing details founded on insights from both visual observation (Bakeman & Adamson, 1984) and eye-tracking (Abney et al, 2017;Yu & Smith, 2013). Critically, our approach allows coding of both the initiation of joint attention (by both/either parent and child), and maintenance of joint attention (again, by both members of the dyad).…”