Hostname: page-component-7b9c58cd5d-9k27k Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-03-15T00:22:49.022Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The theoretical implications of joint-attention deficits in autism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 October 2008

Peter Mundy  and
Marian Sigman
Peter Mundy*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, UCLA Center for the Health Sciences
Marian Sigman
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, UCLA Center for the Health Sciences
*
Reprint requests may be sent to: Peter Mundy, Ph.D., Department of Psychiatry, UCLA Center for the Health Sciences, 760 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA 90024.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Deficits in gestural joint-attention behaviors are a prominent feature of young autistic children. Attempts to explain these deficits have called upon the metarepresentational deficit hypothesis (Baron-Cohen, 1988; Leslie & Frith, 1988). However, developmental research suggests that joint-attention skills emerge prior to the cognitive capacity for metarepresentation. Thus, the metarepresentational hypothesis does not appear to provide a parsimonious explanation of autistic joint-attention deficits. An alternative model is proposed that attempts to explain these deficits in terms of the combined negative impact of developmental disturbances in affective, as well as cognitive, processes.

Type
Target Article
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 1 , Issue 3 , July 1989 , pp. 173 - 183
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adamson, L., & Bakeman, R. (1982). Affectivity and reference: Concepts, methods, and techniques in the study of communication development of 6- to 18-month-old infants. In Field, T. & Fogel, A. (Eds.), Emotion and early interaction (pp. 213–236). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Adamson, L., & Bakeman, R. (1985). Affect and attention: Infants observed with mothers and peers. Child Development, 56, 582–593.Google Scholar
Attwood, A., Frith, U., & Hermelin, B. (1988). The understanding and use of interpersonal gestures by autistic and Down's syndrome children. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 18, 241–257.Google Scholar
Bakeman, R., & Adamson, L. B. (1982). Coordinating attention to people and objects in mother-infant and peer-infant interaction. Child Development, 55, 1278–1289.Google Scholar
Baron-Cohen, S. (1987). Autism and symbolic play. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 5, 139–148.Google Scholar
Baron-Cohen, S. (1988). Social and pragmatic deficits in autism: Cognitive or affective? Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 18, 379–401.Google Scholar
Baron-Cohen, S. (1989). Perceptual role taking and protodeclarative pointing in autism. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 7, 113–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baron-Cohen, S., Leslie, A., & Frith, U. (1985). Does the autistic child have a “theory of mind?” Cognition, 21, 37–46.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bates, E., Bretherton, I., Carlson, V., Carpen, K., & Marcia, R. (1979). Next steps: Follow-up study and some pilot research. In Bates, E. (Ed.), The emergence of symbols: Cognition and communication in infancy (pp. 271–314). New York: Academic.Google Scholar
Belsky, J., & Most, R. (1981). From exploration to play: A cross-sectional study of infant free play behavior. Developmental Psychology, 17, 630–639.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bruner, J., & Sherwood, V. (1983). Thought, language and interaction in infancy. In Call, J. D., Galenson, E., & Tyson, R. L. (Eds.), Frontiers of infant psychiatry. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Curcio, F. (1978). Sensorimotor functioning and communication in mute autistic children. Journal of Autism and Childhood Schizophrenia, 2, 264–287.Google Scholar
Dawson, G., Hill, D., Spencer, A., & Galpert, L. (1988, 04). Affective exchanges between young autistic children and facial expression of affect. Paper presented at the International Conference on Infant Studies,Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Dawson, G., & Lewy, A. (1989). Arousal, attention, and the socioemotional impairments of individuals with autism. In Dawson, G. (Ed.), Autism: Nature, diagnosis, and treatment (pp. 49–74). New York: Guilford.Google Scholar
Ferrara, C., & Hill, S. (1980). The responsiveness of autistic children to the predictability of social and nonsocial toys. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 10, 51–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hannan, T. (1987). A cross-sequential assessment of the occurrences of pointing in 3- to 12-month-old human infants. Infant Behavior and Development, 10, 11–22.Google Scholar
Hermelin, B., & O'Connor, N. (1970). Psychological experiments with autistic children. London: Pergamon.Google Scholar
Hobson, R. P. (1989). Beyond cognition: A theory of autism. In Dawson, G. (Ed.), Autism: New perspectives on diagnosis, nature and treatment. New York: Guilford.Google Scholar
Kanner, L. (1943). Autistic disturbances of affective contact. Nervous Child, 2, 217–250.Google Scholar
Kasari, C., Sigman, M., Mundy, P., & Yirmiya, N. (in press). Affective sharing in the context of joint attention interactions of normal, autistic, and mentally retarded children. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disabilities.Google Scholar
Landry, S., & Loveland, K. (1988). Communication behaviors in autism and developmental language delay. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 29, 621–634.Google Scholar
Leslie, A. (1987). Pretense and representation: The origins of “theory of mind.” Psychological Review, 94, 412–426.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leslie, A., & Frith, U. (1988). Autistic children's understanding of seeing, knowing, and believing. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 6, 315–324.Google Scholar
Lester, B., Hoffman, J., & Brazelton, T. (1985). The structure of mother-infant interaction in term and preterm infants. Child Development, 56, 15–27.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leung, H., & Rheingold, H. (1981). Development of pointing as a social gesture. Developmental Psychology, 17, 215–220.Google Scholar
Lewis, V., & Boucher, J. (1988). Spontaneous, instructed and elicited play in relatively able autistic children. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 6, 325–339.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loveland, K., & Landry, S. (1986). Joint attention in autism and developmental language delay. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 16, 335–349.Google Scholar
Malatesta, C., & Haviland, J. (1982). Learning display rules: The socialization of emotion expression in infancy. Child Development, 53, 991–1003.Google Scholar
Mundy, P., & Sigman, M. (1989). Specifying the nature of the social impairment in autism. In Dawson, G., (Ed.), Autism: New perspectives on diagnosis, nature, and treatment (pp. 3–21). New York: Guilford.Google Scholar
Mundy, P., Sigman, M., & Kasari, C. (in press). A longitudinal study of joint attention and language development in autistic children. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disabilities.Google Scholar
Mundy, P., Sigman, M., Ungerer, J., & Sherman, T. (1986). Defining the social deficits of autism: The contribution of nonverbal communication measures. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 27, 657–669.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mundy, P., Sigman, M., Ungerer, J., & Sherman, T. (1987). Play and nonverbal communication correlates of language development in autistic children. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disabilities, 17, 349–363.Google Scholar
Perner, J., Frith, U., Leslie, A., & Leekam, S. (1989). Exploration of the autistic child's theory of mind: Knowledge, belief, and communication. Child Development, 60, 689–700.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rheingold, H., Hay, D., & West, M. (1976). Sharing in the second year of life. Child Development, 83, 898–913.Google Scholar
Rutter, M. (1984). Cognitive deficits and the patho-genesis of autism. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 24, 513–531.Google Scholar
Sigman, M., & Mundy, P. (1987). Symbolic processes in young autistic children. In Cicchetti, D. (Ed.), New directions in child development: Symbolic development in atypical children (pp. 31–46). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Sigman, M., & Mundy, P. (1989). Social attachments in autistic children. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 28, 74–81.Google Scholar
Sigman, M., Mundy, P., Ungerer, J., & Sherman, T. (1986). Social interactions of autistic, mentally retarded, and normal children and their caregivers. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 27, 647–656.Google Scholar
Sigman, M., & Ungerer, J. (1984). Cognitive and language skills in autistic, mentally retarded and normal children. Developmental Psychology, 20, 293–302.Google Scholar
Snow, M., Hertzig, M., & Shapiro, T. (1987). Expression of emotion in young autistic children. Journal of the A merican Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 26, 255–268.Google ScholarPubMed
Sugarman, S. (1984). The development of preverbal communication. In Schiefelbusch, R. L. & Pickar, J. (Eds.), The acquisition of communicative competence. Baltimore: University Park.Google Scholar
Trevarthen, C. (1979). Communication and cooperation in early infancy: A description of primary intersubjectivity. In Bullowa, M. (Ed.), Before speech: The beginning of interpersonal communication (pp. 321–347). New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tronick, E. (1989). Emotions and emotional communication in infants. American Psychologist, 44, 112–119.Google Scholar
Ungerer, J., & Sigman, M. (1981). Symbolic play and language comprehension in autistic children. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 9, 149–165.Google Scholar
Ungerer, J., Zelazo, P., Kearsley, R., & O'Leary, K. (1981). Developmental changes in the representation of objects in symbolic play from 18 to 34 months of age. Child Development, 52, 186–195.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Volkmar, F., Cohen, D., Bregman, J., Hooks, M., & Stevenson, J. (1989). An examination of social typologies in autism. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 28, 82–86.Google Scholar
Walden, T., & Ogan, T. (1988). The development of social referencing. Child Development, 59, 1230–1240.Google Scholar
Werner, H., & Kaplan, B. (1963). Symbol formation. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Wetherby, A., & Prutting, C. (1984). Profiles of communicative and cognitive-social abilities in autistic children. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 27, 364–377.Google Scholar
Yirmiya, N., Kasari, C., Sigman, M., & Mundy, P. (in press). Facial expressions of affect in autistic mentally retarded and normal children. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.Google Scholar