Specifying the Nature and Course of the Joint Attention Impairment in Autism in the Preschool Years

The paper reviews recent experimental findings into the extent and specificity of the joint attention impairments shown by preschool children with autism. In contrast to the commonly held view that children with autism are impaired in declarative gestures but intact in requesting gestures, the pattern of intact and impaired joint attention abilities revealed by recent research is more complex. The research reviewed represents a significant advance on previous findings by dissociating form and function in gestural communicative acts, by adopting a developmental perspective and thus identifying changes in the precise nature of the joint attention impairments over time, and by taking advantage of recent advances in early detection and diagnosis that enable us to study very young preschoolers with autism. The lessons to be learnt from this research for clinical diagnosis, and early intervention and education programmes, are considered.