Joint attention in autism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Joint attention in autism - Essay ExampleThe facial gesture far-away, with which the child is characterized, describes perfectly the lose of affable interaction that people have with autism. This is one of the reasons why children with autism may be referred to as aloof or sequestered as they appear disinterested in the world around them (Wall, 2004, 5). Other behavioral aspects that show the existence of autism are avoidance of eye contact, lack of proneness to interact or play with other children or adults, lack of desire to establish relationships and friendships, inability to interpret peoples feelings and emotions, lack of verbal and non-verbal social communication as well as some restricted repertoire activities. One of the factors that prove to be problematic while handling social behaviour of children with autism is joint attention. It can be described as the process by which one alerts another about any observation via nonverbal nub such as gazing or spotlighting (W ikipedia). Impairment in joint attention is common in every person with autism and thus it is considered as a extreme area that needs to be studied in depth. Joint attention in typical learning In the early years of their lives, infants of typical development are capable only of involuntary signals a thing that is similar to what other animals do that have limited social behaviour themselves. From an evolutionary point of view, behaviour exists for communication purposes as the older, more mature and cognitively developed people are able to interpret them correctly and therefore understand the childrens needs. But unlike other animals, human infants communication skills improve very quickly. They tend to develop new cognitive capacities that enable them to extract socially germane(predicate) information from the voices, faces and gestures of other people (Slater, Lewis, 2002, 264). After the first year of their lives, the infants develop rapidly in a cognitive level while leaving behind(predicate) the limited capacities he used to have. He gets one step closer to a fully developed human being who is able to understand the intentions of others by dint of their behaviour. During this period, the infants quickly learn the procedure of catch other peoples mind through specific procedures. First they look into their mothers eyeball with delight and follow the direction of her gaze for information. Then, it has been ob managed that the children smile in response to their mothers voice in order to get her attention. Finally, the infants gurgle syllables using words symbolically to get peoples attention and influence their behaviour. Not after the first year will the ability of understanding others thoughts develop in the child. The mind reading ability, which distinguishes humans from other animals, develops gradually over the first year. This ability is spotted first deep down the non-verbal communication (gaze, gesture- in other words joint attention) of t he children and then, it is manifested more clearly in the childs ability to speak and understand language. Joint attention in autism Recent studies have shown that children with autism cannot initiate joint attention skills a thing that is called joint attention deficit. It is described as a lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interests or achievements with other people (American Psychiatric Association, 1995, p.72). Specifically, there are two different functions that joint attention behaviours seem to serve