Journal Article

Joint Attention Initiation With and Without Positive Affect: Risk Group Differences and Associations with ASD Symptoms

Messinger, Daniel S., Gangi, Devon N., Ibañez, Lisa V.

2014

Overview

Infants at risk for autism spectrum disorders (ASD) may have difficulty integrating smiles into initiating joint attention (IJA) bids. A specific IJA pattern, anticipatory smiling, may communicate preexisting positive affect when an infant smiles at an object and then turns the smile toward the social partner. We compared the development of anticipatory smiling at 8, 10, and 12 months in infant siblings of children with ASD (high-risk siblings) and without ASD (low-risk siblings). High-risk siblings produced less anticipatory smiling than low-risk siblings, suggesting early differences in communicating preexisting positive affect. While early anticipatory smiling distinguished the risk groups, IJA not accompanied by smiling best predicted later severity of ASD-related behavioral characteristics among high-risk siblings. High-risk infants appear to show lower levels of motivation to share positive affect with others. However, facility with initiating joint attention in the absence of a clear index of positive affective motivation appears to be central to the prediction of ASD symptoms.

• Publisher: Springer US,Springer,Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: Affect / Affective Behavior / At Risk Persons / At risk youth / Attention / Autism / Autism Spectrum Disorders / Autistic spectrum disorders / Babies / Behavioral Science and Psychology / Biological and medical sciences / Case-Control Studies / Child and School Psychology / Child clinical studies / Child Development Disorders, Pervasive - psychology / Child, Preschool / Communication / Demographic aspects / Developmental disorders / Disorders / Emotions / Expectations / Facial Expression / Facial expressions / Female / Health aspects / High risk / Humans / Infant / Infantile autism / Infants / Interpersonal communication in children / Interpersonal Relations / Joint attention / Language Development / Longitudinal Studies / Male / Medical sciences / Motivation / Neurosciences / Nonverbal Communication / Original Paper / Pediatrics / Pervasive Developmental Disorders / Positive affect / Positive emotions / Predictor Variables / Psychology / Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry / Psychopathology. Psychiatry / Public Health / Risk / Risk factors / Severity (of Disability) / Siblings / Siblings - psychology / Smiling / Symptoms / Young Children