Joint Attention

This week’s theme is interactivity

Children learn in a different way when they are socially engaged – hearing many words isn’t enough, little ones need to be part of the conversation. You don’t have to wait until your little one is talking to engage them in a back-and-forth interaction. This week we will share information about different ways your little one learns from interactivity, and how you can boost interactivity in your interactions.

Read more about interactivity basics

Topic of the Day: Joint Attention 👩‍👦

Joint attention is what we call it when two people are looking at something together, and sharing their interest in it with each other. Sometimes, when a parent is looking at something, their little one will start looking too, to find out what is interesting about it. Sometimes, when a little one is paying attention to something on their own, another person might come to find out what is so interesting, ask questions about it, point or interact with the object of attention. These are all instances of joint attention. Little ones can share joint attention to all kinds of objects and actions. When parents and children pay attention to the same thing, and share their engagement together, it creates special opportunities for learning. You can support your child’s learning on the path to effective language skills by boosting your joint attention together.

In joint attention, episodes little ones might spend some time checking your facial expressions. But this doesn’t mean that they are finished paying attention – rather, looking at your face helps them to find out two important pieces of information: Where you are looking (are you still looking at the same thing?), and what kind of emotion are you showing (surprised? concentrating? stern?). These cues can help your little ones figure out more about the thing of your attention (Is it yucky? Is it nice? Is it interesting?). Little ones can also pick up emotion cues from your voice, so you can provide this cue by talking about the object of your attention. By continuing to pay attention to the same thing, and sharing your attention with your little one, you can help your child develop the kind of sustained attention that enhances learning.

To boost joint attention with your little one you can:

Follow your little one’s gaze
Find what they are looking at – talk about it!
Check in with their facial expressions
Look out for conversational turns (even if not spoken)
Stay on the same topic for a while

How does it work? Joint attention is a social skill that takes some time to develop. For some years, developmental psychologists have seen links between the early emergence joint attention, and the early emergence of language – children who reach joint attention milestones earlier typically know more words than children who learn joint attention later. This suggests that paying attention together provides children with better opportunities for learning, because they hear words for things while they are looking at them, and they hear words for actions while they are doing them. Recent research also suggests that joint attention also provides kids with better sustained attention –helping them to maintain better focus on just one thing at a time, allowing more effective learning to occur. While this research is very new, it suggests a powerful pathway to effective learning skills.

Key point. There’s no need to focus on teaching information about the object or action you are paying attention to together. Rather, joining in with your child’s attention is a great way to share small moments throughout your day, and boost your little one’s learning by talking together.

Watch a video about joint attention (2:39 mins)

BLIP

Brain, Language & Inter-sensory Perception

Joint Attention