The Development of Symbol‐Infused Joint Engagement

Abstract

Fifty-six children were observed longitudinally from 18 to 30 months of age interacting with their mothers during a Communication Play that contained 8 scenes designed to encourage interacting, requesting, commenting, and narrating. Of primary concern was how often symbols infused the child's states of engagement with people and objects and how experience in such symbol-infused states related to language acquisition. Findings indicate that symbols increasingly infuse joint engagement, and that both the timing and the trajectory vary widely among typically developing toddlers, especially during the last half of the 2nd year. Moreover, variations in amount of symbol-infused supported joint engagement may both be influenced by variations in the onset of language and contribute to differences in language facility at 30 months.

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

“…In our study of typicallydeveloping toddlers (Adamson et al, 2004), we found that variations in amount of symbolinfused supported joint engagement, and not the amount of other forms of joint engagement, accounted for a significant amount of the variation in expressive and receptive language outcome at 30 months of age over and above their initial language level. This finding-that the facilitative effect of symbol-infused supported joint engagement is an especially potent context for early vocabulary acquisition-is consistent with views of language acquisition (e.g., Bruner, 1983;Nelson; that locate crucial learning in interactions that focus the child's attention on shared objects and symbols.…”

“…As in Adamson et al (2004), 11 engagement state codes that characterized the child's active attention to people, objects, and symbols were defined. Of primary interest for this report were the four forms of joint engagement: non-symbol-infused supported, non-symbol-infused coordinated, symbol-infused supported, and symbol-infused coordinated (see Table 1).…”

“…However, as the images of "zone of proximal development" evoke, a child may also actively share events and objects without explicitly acknowledging the social partner. Such periods of supported joint engagement occur often in mother-infant interactions (but not infant-infant interactions) by the middle of the first year , and they remain prevalent as language emerges between 18-and 30-months of age (Adamson et al, 2004). Over time the composition of this state may change as both the children (Bakeman, & Adamson, 1986) and the mothers alter their actions, but maternal scaffolding of the interpersonal channel remains a constant.…”

“…Although adult partners often speak during even their first encounter with a newborn (Rheingold & Adams, 1980), infants typically begin to attend to and understand symbolic content and to produce symbolic acts late in their first year and then with increasing regularity and variety during their second year (Adamson, 1996). Thus, initial periods of joint engagement are nonsymbol-infused and then, as symbolic skills emerge, they become symbol-infused (Adamson et al, 2004).…”

“…This research builds upon our longitudinal study of the emergence of symbol-infused joint engagement in typicallydeveloping toddlers (Adamson, Bakeman, & Deckner, 2004). Our basic strategy was to systematically describe engagement states of two new samples, one of young children with autism and one of young children with Down syndrome, who we observed repeatedly as they interacted with their mothers in a range of communicative contexts.…”