Joint Attention – Why it’s important to teach your child to engage and enjoy the company of others

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WHY IS JOINT ATTENTION IMPORTANT?

- Why is joint attention so important?

- Responding to Joint Attention is when your child follows your lead and attends to the same thing as you.

- For example, if you say, “Look!” and point to a ball, your child should look in the direction you are pointing. This is how your child demonstrates joint attention.

- Joint attention allows your child to learn from others and to share enjoyment with others.

- Initiating joint attention is your child’s ability to use their gaze, gestures, pointing, sounds or words to draw your attention to an object or event. Your child will look at the object of interest and then back to you to learn and share enjoyment.

- An example is when a child looks up to the sky and points to an airplane and then looks at parent and back to the airplane passing by.

- If your child looks at you to share enjoyment or to see if you are watching him, this is called social referencing.

- Joint attention is an important milestone for social development as your child is showing interest in not only objects but people and their reactions.

- Children with autism spectrum disorder be delayed developing joint attention.
- At 2 months of age, infants display joint attention by taking turns exchanging looks, noises and mouth movements

- At 6 months, children look in the same direction as others and follow your gaze.

- At 8 months, infants demonstrate pointing

- At 9 months, infants demonstrate gestures and social referencing

- At 1 year, children point intentionally to share interest

- At 12-14 months, your child will start to direct your attention by pointing and then look back to you.

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