There is growing scientific interest in the precursors to the ability of conceiving otherpeople's minds. The present study investigates two candidate precursors, imitationandjoint attention, in young children with autism and a control group of nonautistic children with adevelopmental delay. Children with autism were found to be impaired or delayed in bothabilities. Gestural and procedural imitation were significantly related to mental age andchronological age in subjects with autism. Although the evidence for an autism-specific deficitappears to be stronger in the domain of joint-attention behaviors than it is in the domain ofimitation, it seems premature to reject imitation as a possible precursor to the development ofmindreading skills. Systematic investigations of the imitation deficit in autism are urgentlyneeded.