Joint attention intervention for children with autism
It´s common knowledge that failure to develop joint attention skills is one of the core deficits for children with autism, and there is a growing body of research addressing this issue, both in the behavioral literature and within other theoretical directions. This research has been successful in establishing response to joint attention, but establishing a flexible and relevant repertoire of initiations to joint attentions has shown to be a greater challenge.
Jones (2009) has in Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders published two studies on establishing initiations to joint attention. One addressing the form, and one addressing the stimulus classes.
The first study teached children with autism increasingly more sophisticated forms of joint attention behaviors. Starting with gaze alternating, then gaze alternating and pointing and finally gaze alternating, pointing and verbalization. These skills were established with already established teaching methods outlined in other studies. The second study teached children with autism to respond to more stimuli and to both adults and peers.
These studies shows the possibility to teach an increasingly more sophisticated class of responses, and expand the range of stimuli that occasion joint attention, and adding to the behavioral literature on joint attention. These studies includes two children, calling for more research on this subject.
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