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A Cross-sectional Study of Shared Attention by Children With Autism and Typically Developing Children in an Inclusive Preschool Setting

This study examined the ways in which young children with autism and typical children focus their engagement with objects and people (peers and adults) in an inclusive preschool setting. A cross-sectional analysis was conducted of 30 typical children and 30 children with autism, with 10 different children from each group at 3 different ages (2, 3, and 4 years), interacting with both adults and peers available as partners. By the age of 3 years, typically developing children engaged in coordinated joint attention (CJA) with others at a stable rate. At 4 years, children with autism exhibited more sharing attention to objects and events with others compared with groups with autism at 2 and 3 years. However, episodes of shared engagement remained low, and joint engagement involved more episodes of supported joint engagement compared to typical peers, with an adult as their primary partner. Typical children at 4 years of age showed a trend toward increasing their shared attention with peers. Individual children in both groups had a great deal of variability in their joint engagement with others. Children with autism were much less likely to initiate joint episodes and were much more likely to engage in a joint state for instrumental purposes than were their typical peers. These patterns of engagement are likely to have significant impact on the learning opportunities available to these groups of children.