Gaze-Shift Patterns of Young Children with DevelopmentalDisabilities who are at Risk for being Nonspeaking

Children with developmental disabilities often have difficulty with joint attention that can affect more advanced communication skills. This study evaluated the complexity of child engagement behaviors demonstrated by twenty-five pre-intentional children (age 9 to 25 months), who had developmental disabilities and were at risk for being nonspeaking. During free play with their parents, these children demonstrated infrequent and simple gaze shifts and focused more on individual objects or people than shared attention with parents during play. These children seldom engaged in coordinated attention behaviors such as shifting gaze back and forth between people and objects during their play with parents. Type and frequency of engagement behaviors are discussed relative to understanding the unique challenges for children with developmental disabilities that include motor and visual impairments. The quality of joint attention with adult partners has been found to influence the later communicative development in children with disabilities (Legerstee & Weintraub, 1997, Mundy & Willoughby, 1996, Yoder & Farran, 1986). Joint attention is defined as a state in which the attention of a caregiver and child are focused on the same object, typically demonstrated in early infancy through simple gaze shift patterns (Bakeman & Adamson, 1984). Joint attention allows a child to realize that meanings can be exchanged between people and suggests an understanding that social partners can serve an instrumental function. By six months of age, typically developing children begin to gaze shift between caregivers and objects (Bakeman & Adamson, 1984). Generally by thirteen months of age, children demonstrate three-point gaze shifts, coordinating their attention back and forth between a person and shared objects of attention (i.e. adult 3 toy 3 adult, or toy 3 adult 3 toy) (Bakeman & Adamson, 1984). With threepoint, “coordinated” joint attention, children can actively engage in or monitor activities jointly with partners, by sharing attention to an object or topic of interest. It is possible, but unclear, whether children engage in some two-point gaze shifts where they look only once at a person and an object at a time (i.e. adult 3 toy, or toy 3 adult) before they can engage in coordinated three-point joint atten-