Scientists have shed new light on a human behavior called joint attention—the ability for two or more people to share attention about something. For instance, a child and mother may both see a ...

For decades, autism research has relied on data collected during lab tasks or interviews with clinicians that are more constrained than the child's day-to-day interactions with others. A study ...

A recent study published in JAMA Network Open explores how tablet use by toddlers with poor language development is influenced by interference with joint attention. In this process, two people focus ...

A new study shows that infants who are later diagnosed with autism react adequately when others initiate joint attention, but seldom actively seek to establish such episodes themselves. This finding ...

Words like 'this' and 'that' or 'here' and 'there' occur in all languages. Researchers show that such 'demonstrative' words are used to direct listeners' focus of attention and to establish joint ...

Human beings are the only known species to practice joint attention, the coordination of two or more people to focus on another third object. Linguists theorize this quality is what allows us to use ...