According to many philosophers and scientists, human sociality is explained by our unique capacity to ‘share’ the mental states of others and to form collective intentional states. Collective intentionality has been widely debated in the past two decades, focusing especially on the issue of its reducibility to individual intentionality and the place of collective intentions in the natural realm. It is not clear, however, to what extent these two issues are related, and what methodologies of investigation are appropriate in each case. In this thesis I set out a theory of the naturalization of collective intentionality that draws a line between naturalizability arguments and theories of collective intentionality naturalized. The former provide reasons for believing in the naturalness of collective intentional states based on our commonsense understanding of them; the latter offer responses to the ontological question about the existence and identity of collective as distinct from individual intentionality. This model is naturalistic because it holds that the only way to establish the place of mental entities in the order of things is through the theory and practice of science. After reviewing naturalizability arguments in philosophy, I consider an influential research program in the cognitive sciences. On the account that I present, the irreducibility of collective intentionality can be derived from a theory of human development in scientific psychology dealing with phenomena of sociality like communication, recently refined by Michael Tomasello.

Research investigating associations between joint attention and language development have thus far only investigated joint attention by way of visual perceptions while neglecting the potential effects of joint attention engaged through other sensory modalities. In the present study, I aimed to investigate the joint attention-language development relationship by investigating the possible links between joint haptic attention and language development, while also exploring the likely contributions of joint visual attention through a mediation analysis. Using video recordings from an archival dataset, measures of joint haptic attention and joint visual attention were derived from behavioral tasks, and measures of vocabulary development were attained from a caregiver reported measure. Analyses revealed that joint haptic attention was associated with joint visual attention, and that joint visual attention was related to language development; however, there were no significant associations between joint haptic attention and language development. Study limitations, future directions, and conclusions are discussed.

Background. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by deficits in social interaction, communication, and restricted and repetitive behaviors (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Given the heterogeneity of ASD it is important to understand individual differences within the disorder that are related to cognitive and language development, and how such differences may be related to differences in caregiver behavior or aspects of the social environment. Joint attention is an important component of early social communication and is considered to be a “core deficit” of ASD (Kasari, Freeman, Paparella, Wong, Kwon, & Gulsrud, 2005). Individual differences in joint attention during infancy have been shown to relate to language and cognitive development (Mundy, Block, Delgado, Pomares, Van Hecke, & Parlade, 2007; Nichols, Martin, & Fox, 2005). Therefore, joint attention serves an essential role in the study of child behavior within ASD across development. The present study consists of two manuscripts that explored how joint attention in children with ASD related to sensory responsiveness and social competence (Study 1), and how child joint attention related to mother attention and contextual factors (Study 2). Specifically, Study 1 investigated relations among children's sensory responses, dyadic orienting, joint attention, and their subsequent social competence with peers. Participants were 38 children (18 children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and 20 developmentally matched children with typical development) between the ages of 2.75 and 6.5 years. Observational coding was conducted to assess children's joint attention and dyadic orienting in a structured social communication task. Children's sensory responses and social competence were measured with parent report. Group differences were observed in children's joint attention, sensory responses, multisensory dyadic orienting, and social competence, with the ASD group showing significantly greater social impairment and sensory responses compared with their typical peers. Atypical sensory responses were negatively associated with individual differences on social competence subscales. Interaction effects were observed between diagnostic group and sensory responses with diagnostic group moderating the relation between sensory responses and both joint attention and social competence abilities. Study 2 investigated relations between child joint attention and mother attention during three social contexts (competing demands, teaching, and free play) among 44 children with ASD between the ages of 2.5 and 5.6 years, and their mothers. Observational coding was conducted to assess children’s joint attention and mother’s dyadic orienting. Children’s expressive and receptive language was measured by teacher report. The rate of children’s joint attention, and mothers’ dyadic orienting differed depending on the context of their interaction. Children’s joint attention, expressive and receptive language, age, and ASD severity, and mother dyadic orienting were related, and these relations differed by context. Child initiating joint attention (IJA) was also related to mother attention, and this relation was moderated by the child’s expressive and receptive language. A temporal contingency was revealed for the association between child IJA and mother attention with a bi-directional association such that child IJA predicted subsequent mother attention, and mother attention predicted subsequent child IJA. When the sample was split by children’s language ability (i.e., minimally-verbal and verbal groups) there was a group by receptive language, and a group by expressive language interaction on the contingency between child IJA and subsequent mother attention. Conclusion. The results from study 1 and study 2 suggest that individual differences in children with ASD, including their sensory responses and social competence, as well as mother attention and contextual factors are related to children’s joint attention. When addressing theory and interventions for children with ASD, it is important to consider children’s language and sensory sensitivities, the demands of the interactive context, and factors related to mother attention and approach to her child.

The present study investigates the relationship between individual differences in children's temperament and their responsiveness to joint attention. Twenty-five 11-month-old children (12 girls and 13 boys) were presented with a gaze-following task in a laboratory setting, and parent reports of temperament were collected. Findings indicate that children's ability to correctly follow an experimenter's gaze differed as a function of individual temperament predispositions. Children high in perceptual sensitivity and negative affect engaged in relatively less frequent gaze-following, consistent with reports from previous research. However analysis of the dimension of orienting/effortful control produced an unexpected finding; that children low in effortful control were relatively more likely to respond to joint attentional bids. Overall, these findings are consistent with a view of temperament as a moderator of children's engagement in joint attention, and raise the possibility that joint attention may be a mechanism underlying previous reports of temperament–language relationships.

A atenção conjunta é considerada, na literatura específica, como sendo uma habilidade fundamental do bebê para que este possa, a partir dela, estabelecer um conjunto de dimensões básicas no seu desenvolvimento cognitivo, social e afetivo. A atenção conjunta se refere a comportamentos como olhar na direção do olhar do outro, observar a face, a intenção e os interesses do outro, mostrar e compartilhar interativamente objetos com outros. Episódios de atenção conjunta, portanto, podem quase ser denominados de episódios de atenção visual conjunta. Esta capacidade, como dado eminentemente visual, tem sido considerada como crucialmente importante para o desenvolvimento da capacidade interativa do bebê, sendo indispensável para que este se socialize. Entretanto, ao se pensar estes processos em crianças cegas ou com deficiência visual severa, depara-se com a pouca quantidade de informação disponível em dados de pesquisas. Assim, a meta desta pesquisa foi investigar se ocorreu e como ocorreu a construção, o estabelecimento e a manutenção do processo de atenção conjunta em um bebê vidente e um bebê com deficiência visual severa, ambos em interação com os parceiros em seu entorno. Para tal, partiu-se da verificação de quais pistas sensoriais o bebê ou os parceiros circundantes se utilizam nas interações (se pistas visuais, táteis, vestibulares, auditivas, cinestésicas, olfativas ou gustativas) para iniciar, estabelecer e manter a atenção conjunta. Utilizou-se de estudo de casos múltiplos-exploratórios, envolvendo um bebê com deficiência visual severa e sua família vidente, fazendo-se um contraponto com um bebê vidente em uma família também vidente. O contraponto se mostrou importante para dar visibilidade a recursos e aspectos específicos do processo, e também preservar as características dos ambientes em que os bebês e suas famílias se encontram. A perspectiva sócio-interacionista permitiu a compreensão dos processos desenvolvimentais que ocorrem nestas situações. A construção do corpus se deu através de videogravações, posteriormente recortadas de acordo com sua relevância para a verificação da meta proposta, sendo as cenas selecionadas transcritas. Para a análise destes recortes considerou-se a abordagem microgenética, com aporte metodológico da Rede de Significações funcionando como proposta privilegiada e possibilitadora da compreensão da complexidade dos processos. Como resultados, verificou-se que para o bebê vidente, os dados encontrados confirmam o que a literatura específica indica como sendo o percurso típico para a construção da atenção conjunta. Para o bebê com deficiência visual severa, nota-se também, a partir de outras pistas que não as visuais, o estabelecimento e a manutenção do processo de atenção conjunta. Sugerem-se, entretanto, mais pesquisas a respeito destas questões, não só para se buscar mais dados a partir de outros bebês videntes e também com as mesmas características sensoriais diferenciadas da cegueira ou da deficiência visual severa, como também para contribuir com a construção de novos dados teóricos a respeito do tema. / Joint attention is considered, in specific literature, as a fundamental skill of the baby. Through this ability, the baby sets up a group of basic dimensions in his cognitive, social and affective development. Joint attention refers to behaviors like looking in the direction of someone else\'s gaze, observe the face, the intent and the interests of the other, pointing out and sharing objects interactively with other. Joint attention episodes, therefore, can almost be called joint visual attention episodes. This ability, basically as a visual fact, has been considered as crucially important for the development of the interactive capabilities of the baby, becoming essential for his socialization. However, there is few survey data about joint attention in severe visual impairment or blind children. Therefore, this research aims to investigate if occurs and how occurs the construction, establishment and maintenance of joint attention process in a seer baby, and in a severe visual impairment baby, both in interaction with surrounding partners. This work is intended to check what sensorial cues are being used, by the baby or by the surrounding partners, in their interactions (whether visual, tactile, vestibular, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory or gustatory) to initiate, establish and maintain joint attention. It was choosen the methodology Exploratory Multiple Case Study, involving a severe visual impairment baby and its seer family, as a counterpoint to a seer baby and its seer family. This approach offered additional visibility to some specific aspects in joint attention, and, in addition, to preserving surrounding characters in which babies and their families are involved. The Social-Interactionist Perspective allowed the understanding of such developmental processes. Corpus Construction were captured on digital video recordings, subsequently prepared accordingly to the work goal and its relevancy. The selected scenes were transcribed. For the analysis of these clippings was considered a microgenetic approach. The Network of Meanings sustained the comprehension of joint attention processes and offers methodological support. As an outcome for the seer baby, this work endorses what specific literature indicates for the establishment of joint attention in a typical development child. For this baby with severe visual impairment, it was observed establishment and maintenance of joint attention process, from non visual sensory cues. However, it suggests more research on these issues to generate new contribuitions over the theme joint attention, not only to seer babies, but also to severe visual impairment babies. These future works might contribute to build new theoretical data on joint attention, in typical or even atypical sensorial conditions of development.

The general purpose of the current study was to evaluate the effects of minimally intrusive prompting procedures and preferred stimuli on protodeclarative joint attention initiations in children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Two boys and one girl diagnosed with ASD participated. The experimenter provided attention and social interaction following protodeclarative initiations throughout all phases of the study. During intervention, a model prompt was delivered every 30 s if the participant failed to initiate a bid for joint attention. Results for the first participant show that a model prompt was sufficient to increase the rate of protodeclarative initiations across stimulus sets. Generalization was seen across sets, but not across environments. Subsequently, the model prompt was sufficient to increase the rate of protodeclarative initiations across sets in a second setting (classroom). Results for the second participant are inconclusive. Data collected during the initial baseline condition show that she engaged in an incompatible verbal response across sets. When pictorial stimuli depicting highinterest items and activities were introduced, the rate of protodeclarative initiations increased over time. We then returned to original baseline condition and saw an initial decrease, followed by a steady increase in the rate of protodeclarative initiations. The third participant withdrew prematurely due to medical reasons. The findings of the current study show that minimally intrusive prompts and natural consequences may be sufficient to establish protodeclarative initiations in children. However, this finding may be limited to only those children for whom social interactions already function as reinforcers.

Researchers have demonstrated a persistent relationship between joint attention (JA) and language abilities. For example, 14-month JA is associated with concurrent performance on a word-object association task under control conditions as well as under distraction (Salley et al., 2012). Research has also shown associations between temperament and language. For example, 13-month temperament predicts 20-month productive vocabulary (Dixon & Shore, 1997). It has been suggested that "risky" temperamental profiles, such as when children have high negative affectivity and low effortful control, can especially lead to language delay (Dixon & Smith, 2000). In this investigation, we explored whether temperamental profile might moderate the relationship between JA and language ability. Eighty-three children (32 girls) visited the lab at M = 15.45 months (SD = 1.92 months). Caregivers completed the Infant Behavioral Questionnaire-Revised (IBQR) and the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory: Words and Gestures (MCDI-WG). The IBQ-R produced three overarching superdimensions: surgency, negative affectivity, and effortful control, two of which were used to identify children as temperamentally "at-risk" or "buffered." Total receptive vocabulary was derived from the MCDI-WG. Temperamental risk was defined as scoring high in negative affectivity and low in effortful control; while temperamental buffering was defined as scoring low in negative affectivity and high in effortful control. JA was measured using a Brooks and Meltzoff (2005) type gaze-following procedure, with some gaze-following trials subjected to an exogenous distractor (Elmo video playing in the background), and others undistracted. JA was defined as total infant looking time to experimenter-fixated target objects. Overall, receptive vocabulary was correlated with JA in both nondistracted (r = .30, p = .01) and distracted conditions (r = .25, p = .04). Although infants did not differ in either JA or receptive vocabulary as a function of temperamental profile, we found that the correlation between JA and receptive vocabulary did. Specifically, JA was not associated with receptive vocabulary for children with risky temperament (see Table 1). But there was a large and positive association between receptive vocabulary and JA among children with a buffered temperament, regardless of distraction condition. Moderation analyses confirmed that temperamental risk was a significant moderator of the JA-receptive vocabulary relationship (moderator control = -1.09, p = .006; moderator distraction = - 0.75, p = .01). These results are partially consistent with theoretical expectations, although they need be supported by further research. They suggest, for example, that the JAlanguage relationship may be attenuated or enhanced depending on infants' temperament profiles. It may be that children who are low in negative affectivity and high in effortful control can maximize their allocation of attention both in the service of following the gaze of a social partner, and in making word-referent mappings during social exchange. The fact that the JA-receptive vocabulary correlation appeared unaffected by the presence of an exogenous distractor raises the possibility that one means through which a buffering temperamental profile may operate is by desensitizing children to ambient environmental distractions during real-time acquisition of linguistically relevant stimuli.

This study examined the use of shaping with a percentile schedule to increase the duration of the interaction following a bid for joint attention in children with autism. Specifically, the therapist initiated a bid for joint attention and reinforced longer successive approximations in seconds of sustained interaction with the therapist and activity. A percentile schedule ranked the most recent 10 observations and reinforcement was provided if the current observation equaled the sixth ranking. Most-to-least prompting was used if the child failed to meet the calculated criterion. Shaping with a percentile schedule of reinforcement was effective at increasing the duration of sustained interaction following a bid for joint attention, for all participants from an average baseline duration of 13 s to an average intervention duration of 215 s.

The current study examined the development of responding to joint attention (RJA), a prelinguistic skill, in a sample of children prenatally cocaine exposed. The sample used was part of a larger population of children randomly assigned to three levels of intervention. The growth of RJA in the current sample was best characterized by two linear growth groups determined by a semi-parametric growth modeling program. Each trajectory group was differentially associated with three language outcomes. Gender, treatment group, and birthweight were three risk factors that influenced the likelihood of belonging to either growth cluster. RJA?s predictive significance in terms of concurrent and subsequent language was also established, accounting for the variance associated with contemporaneous measures of cognition. The findings (regarding the relationship between RJA and language) were consistent with previous research examining joint attention behaviors in other types of samples. Additionally, this study contributed uniquely to the body of research on joint attention by exploring the growth of RJA, a precursor of language, in a sample of children at risk for language impairment.

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