Joint attention partially mediates the longitudinal relation between attuned caregiving and executive functions for low-income children.

Abstract

Using data from a large longitudinal sample (N = 1,292) of children and their caregivers in predominantly low-income, nonurban communities, we investigated longitudinal relations between attuned caregiving in infancy, joint attention in toddlerhood, and executive functions in early childhood. The results from path analysis demonstrated that attuned caregiving during infancy predicted more joint attention in toddlerhood, which was in turn associated with better executive function performance in early childhood. Joint attention was a stronger predictor of executive functions for lower-income families. Moreover, joint attention mediated the relation between attuned caregiving and executive functions, and this mediation was amplified for lower-income families. These results highlight joint attention as a key mechanism through which attuned caregiving supports the development of executive functions, particularly for low-income families.

The Bidirectional Social-Cognitive Mechanisms of the Social-Attention Symptoms of Autism

“…Their early diagnostic value notwithstanding, the early emergence of social attention symptoms also likely reflects primary if not congenital neurodevelopmental mechanisms of the complex endophenotype of ASD (9,16,(39)(40)(41)(42). Moreover, early social attention symptoms are thought to be associated with significant differences in early socialinformation processing that contribute to the developmental perturbations in learning, social communication, and cognition that are characteristic of older autistic children (16,39,(43)(44)(45). This "developmental cascade hypothesis" of social attention symptoms has motivated researchers to develop methods to target interventions for joint attention, social orienting, and eye contact in young children (46,47).…”

Emerging coherence and relations to communication among executive function tasks in toddlers: Evidence from a Latin American sample

“…Although we did not see differences between individuals with UBN and SBN in the Anot-B and Spatial Reversal task, our sample overall identified as low to mid-SES and it is possible, we could see more differentiation with more variability in SES. Also, the lack of differences could be due to the task impurity problem in this age range and lack of measures of parenting abilities, caregivers-infant interactions, and informal activities (e.g., playing ball games, clapping, and drawing) in the different SES groups, which could serve as a protective factor of poverty (Bernier et al, 2011;Brandes-Aitken et al, 2020). Having said that, we did see that child with UBN showed shorter latencies on the snack delay compared to children with SBN.…”

“…In young preschoolers and toddlers, these communications skills are often developing so relations to language and communication more broadly defined (e.g., joint or shared attention, gesture) have been examined. For example, within the second year a number of studies have linked EF-related abilities to non-verbal communication related to gestures, with authors suggesting: (a) private gestures have the function of directing infants' behavior (Basilio & Rodríguez, 2017;Kuvalja et al, 2013), (b) cognitive abilities common to EF link to gestures and language (Kuhn et al, 2014(Kuhn et al, , 2016, and (c) during joint attention episodes parents scaffold basic components of cognitive control (Brandes-Aitken et al, 2020). In addition, studies have found EF links to initiating joint attention (i.e., IJA, internally motivated sharing of interest and experiences with adults), with authors suggesting infants must represent and reflect on the representation to guide sharing behavior (Miller & Marcovitch, 2015).…”

“…We examined two group differences in the present study-social vulnerability/socioeconomic status (SES) and gender. Work has already demonstrated EF limitations in samples with lower SES in older samples (Arán-Filippetti, 2013;Brandes-Aitken et al, 2020;Hermida et al, 2019;Hughes & Ensor, 2007;Willoughby et al, 2010), with few studies replicating these differences in samples under 24 months, likely due to the fact that there is less research and fewer assessments designed for toddlers relative to older samples (e.g., Gago Galvagno et al, 2019;Hughes & Ensor, 2007;Veer et al, 2017). In addition, work showing gender differences in EF are equivocal, with girls tending to perform better on different EF and communication measures in the first 3 years (e.g., Espy et al, 1999;Lipina et al, 2004;Silva et al, 2017;Weinberg et al, 1999, but see Lind et al, 2017;Lindsey et al, 2010).…”

A Hierarchical Integrated Model of Self-Regulation

“…Brandes-Aitken et al ( 2020 ) demonstrated the importance of the primary caregiver in an analysis using data from the Family Life Project (FLP; described in a later section). The authors examined relations among attuned caregiving (i.e., the caregiver's sensitive behavior including appropriate contingency and matching based on the child's developmental and emotional needs) at 15 months, joint attention at 24 months, and executive function at 48 months.…”