Mutual regulation of attention was investigated in a group of prenatally cocaine-exposed and non-exposed mother-infant dyads during a 5-minute videotaped free play session. Mutual regulation was measured using a state-based coding scheme designed to categorize dyadic interactions into three mutually exclusive and exhaustive states: maternal bid, mutual engagement, and non-involved. Results revealed no significant differences between cocaine-exposed and non-exposed dyads in overall amount of mutual engagement displayed. Cocaine-exposed dyads exhibited significantly longer mutual engagement episodes. Mothers in the two groups did not differ in the number or quality of bids for mutual engagement, and infants in both groups were equally responsive to maternal bids. No ecological variables were found to predict mutual engagement.

<p>Joint attention is critical for social learning activities such as parent-child shared book reading. However, there is a potential disassociation of attention when the adult reads texts while the child looks at pictures. I hypothesize that the lack of joint attention limits children's opportunity to learn print-related skills. The current study tests the hypothesis with interventions that enhance real-time joint attention. Eye movements of parents and children were simultaneously tracked when they read books together on computer screens. I also provided real-time feedback to the parent regarding where the child was looking, and vice versa. Changes of dyads' reading behaviors before and after the joint attention intervention were measured from both eye movements and video records. Baseline data showed little joint attention in parent-child shared book reading. The real-time attention feedback significantly increased the joint attention and children's print-related learning. These findings supported my hypothesis that engaging in effective joint attention is critical for children to acquire knowledge and skills during shared reading and other collaborative learning activities.</p> / Dissertation

Joint attention, a crucial component in interaction and an important milestone in human development, has drawn a lot of attention from the robotics community recently. Robotics researchers have studied and implemented joint attention for robots for the purposes of achieving natural human-robot interaction and facilitating social learning. Most previous work on the realization of joint attention in the robotics community has focused only on responding to joint attention and/or initiating joint attention. Responding to joint attention is the ability to follow another's direction of gaze and gestures in order to share common experience. Initiating joint attention is the ability to manipulate another's attention to a focus of interest in order to share experience. A third important component of joint attention is ensuring, where by the initiator ensures that the responders has changed their attention. However, to the best of our knowledge, there is no work explicitly addressing the ability for a robot to ensure that joint attention is reached by interacting agents. We refer to this ability as ensuring joint attention and recognize its importance in human-robot interaction. We propose a computational model of joint attention consisting of three parts: responding to joint attention, initiating joint attention, and ensuring joint attention. This modular decomposition is supported by psychological findings and matches the developmental timeline of humans. Infants start with the skill of following a caregiver's gaze, and then they exhibit imperative and declarative pointing gestures to get a caregiver's attention. Importantly, as they aged and social skills matured, initiating actions often come with an ensuring behavior that is to look back and forth between the caregiver and the referred object to see if the caregiver is paying attention to the referential object. We conducted two experiments to investigate joint attention in human-robot interaction. The first experiment explored effects of responding to joint attention. We hypothesize that humans will find that robots responding to joint attention are more transparent, more competent, and more socially interactive. Transparency helps people understand a robot's intention, facilitating a better human-robot interaction, and positive perception of a robot improves the human-robot relationship. Our hypotheses were supported by quantitative data, results from questionnaire, and behavioral observations. The second experiment studied the importance of ensuring joint attention. The results confirmed our hypotheses that robots that ensure joint attention yield better performance in interactive human-robot tasks and that ensuring joint attention behaviors are perceived as natural behaviors by humans. The findings suggest that social robots should use ensuring joint attention behaviors.

Existem duas modalidades de comportamentos de Atenção Compartilhada (AC), os de Resposta (RAC) e os de Iniciativa (IAC). O comprometimento na habilidade de AC é um dos sinais mais robustos do Transtorno do Espectro Autista (TEA), entretanto é o atraso na fala o sintoma mais frequentemente identificado pelos pais. Procurando explorar essa premissa, esse trabalho constitui-se por três estudos. No primeiro, realizou-se uma revisão crítica da literatura acerca dos comportamentos de IAC e RAC no TEA, apresentando modelos teóricos e evidências. Os outros dois estudos, de natureza empírica, investigaram, respectivamente: (a) os primeiros sintomas observados pelos pais e a idade da criança na ocaisão e (b) a relação entre a intensidade dos comprometimentos precoces na AC (IAC e RAC, separadamente) e o desenvolvimento sociocomunicativo subsequente das crianças. Participaram desses estudos 32 crianças com TEA, que foram avaliadas no Cincinnatti Children´s Medical Center. Os instrumentos utilizados foram a Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised e o Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule. Evidenciou-se que os comprometimentos no desenvolvimento da linguagem foram os sintomas mais frequentemente observados, porém os da socialização foram os mais precocemente identificados. Não foram encontradas associações significativas entre as variáveis IAC, RAC e o desenvolvimento sociocomunicativo. Os achados dos estudos foram discutidos à luz da teoria sociopragmática e foram contrapostos com outras investigações já realizadas acerca do tema. / There are two types of Joint Attention (JA) behaviors, the response (RJA) and Initiative (IJA). The impairment in JA ability is one of the signals more robust of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). However the delay in the speech is the symptom most frequently identified by parents. This work is made up of three studies. At first, there was a critical review of the literature concerning the behaviors of RJA and IJA in ASD, presented theoretical models and evidence. The other two studies were empirical and aimed to investigate, respectively: (a) the type of first symptoms that arouses in caregivers of children with autism and the child's age by that time; and (b) the relationship between intensity of difficulties in the JA (IJA and IJA, separately) and the socio-comunicative development of children with ASD. Participants in these studies were 32 children with Autistic Disorder who were evaluated at Cincinnati Children's Medical Center. The instruments used were the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised and Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule. It was evident that the difficulties in language development were the most frequently identified by parents. However the impairments in the social development were earlier observed. There were no significant associations between variables RJA. IJA and the development of communication and reciprocal social interaction. The findings of the studies were discussed in light of the socio-pragmatic theory and were contrasted with other previous research on this subject.

Submitted by Fernando Souza (fernandoafsou@gmail.com) on 2017-08-03T15:13:32Z No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 3468817 bytes, checksum: 26997e2cfb55cc845fc1ce663f53df84 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-08-03T15:13:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 3468817 bytes, checksum: 26997e2cfb55cc845fc1ce663f53df84 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-03-03 / The aim of this research was to analyze the use of multimodal resources by the autistic child in scenes of joint attention occurred in a school context, considering limitations as communicative, learning and social interaction aspects. The theoretical basis of this work required the resumption of specific literature on autism, from the classic studies of Kanner (1943) to the assessment of the diagnosis presented in DSM-5 (2013), as well as the conceptions formulated by Bruner (1975, 1983) and Tomasello (2003) on joint attention, and the construction of the notion of multimodality, based on the studies made by Kendon (1982) and McNeill (1985), which also base the investigation. Methodologically, it was necessary to carry out a case study in which a 5-year-old male child with a diagnosis of autism was observed for a period of 4 months within the interactions established in the school context, either in the classroom or outside, thus constituting a corpus of approximately 3 hours and 50 minutes duration which was composed of 13 sections of data collection. After the collection, the data were transcribed and analyzed by the researcher through ELAN software. Through the observation and analysis of the interactive scenes involving the autistic child, it was found that although the child did not have the ability to communicate verbally, the child used the multimodality to establish communication with his / her partners. The multimodal resources such as gaze and gestures become here the main means of communication for the child, fundamental for initiating and maintaining interactions. / A pesquisa teve por objetivo analisar a utilização dos recursos multimodais pela criança autista em cenas de atenção conjunta ocorridas em contexto escolar, considerando-se as suas limitações quanto aos aspectos comunicativos, de aprendizagem e interação social. A fundamentação teórica deste trabalho exigiu a retomada da literatura específica sobre o autismo, desde os estudos clássicos de Kanner (1943) até a apreciação do diagnóstico apresentado no DSM-5 (2013), bem como das concepções formuladas por Bruner (1975; 1983) e Tomasello (2003) sobre a atenção conjunta, e a construção da noção de multimodalidade, baseada nos estudos feitos por Kendon (1982) e McNeill (1985), os quais também fundamentam a investigação realizada. Para tanto, metodologicamente, fez-se necessária a realização de um estudo de caso no qual uma criança do sexo masculino com 5 anos de idade e com diagnóstico de autismo foi observada por um período de 4 meses dentro das interações estabelecidas no contexto escolar, seja na sala de aula ou fora dela, constituindo assim um corpus de aproximadamente 3 horas e 50 minutos de duração que foi composto com a realização de 13 seções de coletas de dados. Após a coleta, os dados foram transcritos e analisados pelo pesquisador por meio do software ELAN. Através da observação e análise das cenas interativas envolvendo a criança autista, foi constatado que embora não possua a capacidade de se comunicar verbalmente, a criança utilizou-se da multimodalidade para estabelecer comunicação com seus parceiros. Os recursos multimodais como olhar e gestos tornam-se aqui o principal meio de comunicação para a criança, fundamentais para iniciar e manter as interações.

Existem duas modalidades de comportamentos de Atenção Compartilhada (AC), os de Resposta (RAC) e os de Iniciativa (IAC). O comprometimento na habilidade de AC é um dos sinais mais robustos do Transtorno do Espectro Autista (TEA), entretanto é o atraso na fala o sintoma mais frequentemente identificado pelos pais. Procurando explorar essa premissa, esse trabalho constitui-se por três estudos. No primeiro, realizou-se uma revisão crítica da literatura acerca dos comportamentos de IAC e RAC no TEA, apresentando modelos teóricos e evidências. Os outros dois estudos, de natureza empírica, investigaram, respectivamente: (a) os primeiros sintomas observados pelos pais e a idade da criança na ocaisão e (b) a relação entre a intensidade dos comprometimentos precoces na AC (IAC e RAC, separadamente) e o desenvolvimento sociocomunicativo subsequente das crianças. Participaram desses estudos 32 crianças com TEA, que foram avaliadas no Cincinnatti Children´s Medical Center. Os instrumentos utilizados foram a Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised e o Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule. Evidenciou-se que os comprometimentos no desenvolvimento da linguagem foram os sintomas mais frequentemente observados, porém os da socialização foram os mais precocemente identificados. Não foram encontradas associações significativas entre as variáveis IAC, RAC e o desenvolvimento sociocomunicativo. Os achados dos estudos foram discutidos à luz da teoria sociopragmática e foram contrapostos com outras investigações já realizadas acerca do tema. / There are two types of Joint Attention (JA) behaviors, the response (RJA) and Initiative (IJA). The impairment in JA ability is one of the signals more robust of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). However the delay in the speech is the symptom most frequently identified by parents. This work is made up of three studies. At first, there was a critical review of the literature concerning the behaviors of RJA and IJA in ASD, presented theoretical models and evidence. The other two studies were empirical and aimed to investigate, respectively: (a) the type of first symptoms that arouses in caregivers of children with autism and the child's age by that time; and (b) the relationship between intensity of difficulties in the JA (IJA and IJA, separately) and the socio-comunicative development of children with ASD. Participants in these studies were 32 children with Autistic Disorder who were evaluated at Cincinnati Children's Medical Center. The instruments used were the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised and Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule. It was evident that the difficulties in language development were the most frequently identified by parents. However the impairments in the social development were earlier observed. There were no significant associations between variables RJA. IJA and the development of communication and reciprocal social interaction. The findings of the studies were discussed in light of the socio-pragmatic theory and were contrasted with other previous research on this subject.

Existem duas modalidades de comportamentos de Atenção Compartilhada (AC), os de Resposta (RAC) e os de Iniciativa (IAC). O comprometimento na habilidade de AC é um dos sinais mais robustos do Transtorno do Espectro Autista (TEA), entretanto é o atraso na fala o sintoma mais frequentemente identificado pelos pais. Procurando explorar essa premissa, esse trabalho constitui-se por três estudos. No primeiro, realizou-se uma revisão crítica da literatura acerca dos comportamentos de IAC e RAC no TEA, apresentando modelos teóricos e evidências. Os outros dois estudos, de natureza empírica, investigaram, respectivamente: (a) os primeiros sintomas observados pelos pais e a idade da criança na ocaisão e (b) a relação entre a intensidade dos comprometimentos precoces na AC (IAC e RAC, separadamente) e o desenvolvimento sociocomunicativo subsequente das crianças. Participaram desses estudos 32 crianças com TEA, que foram avaliadas no Cincinnatti Children´s Medical Center. Os instrumentos utilizados foram a Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised e o Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule. Evidenciou-se que os comprometimentos no desenvolvimento da linguagem foram os sintomas mais frequentemente observados, porém os da socialização foram os mais precocemente identificados. Não foram encontradas associações significativas entre as variáveis IAC, RAC e o desenvolvimento sociocomunicativo. Os achados dos estudos foram discutidos à luz da teoria sociopragmática e foram contrapostos com outras investigações já realizadas acerca do tema. / There are two types of Joint Attention (JA) behaviors, the response (RJA) and Initiative (IJA). The impairment in JA ability is one of the signals more robust of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). However the delay in the speech is the symptom most frequently identified by parents. This work is made up of three studies. At first, there was a critical review of the literature concerning the behaviors of RJA and IJA in ASD, presented theoretical models and evidence. The other two studies were empirical and aimed to investigate, respectively: (a) the type of first symptoms that arouses in caregivers of children with autism and the child's age by that time; and (b) the relationship between intensity of difficulties in the JA (IJA and IJA, separately) and the socio-comunicative development of children with ASD. Participants in these studies were 32 children with Autistic Disorder who were evaluated at Cincinnati Children's Medical Center. The instruments used were the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised and Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule. It was evident that the difficulties in language development were the most frequently identified by parents. However the impairments in the social development were earlier observed. There were no significant associations between variables RJA. IJA and the development of communication and reciprocal social interaction. The findings of the studies were discussed in light of the socio-pragmatic theory and were contrasted with other previous research on this subject.

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.

Children with autism show deficits in communication skills, including joint attention, a component of which is following the line of regard. Two experiments were conducted. The first experiment examined how prompting and fading procedures effected following the line of regard in a child with autism. The second experiment examined this effect on the child's learning the names of novel objects. One 10-year-old boy, with a primary diagnosis of autism, participated. A changing criterion design was used in Experiment I. Experiment II used a succession of interventions to assess incidental learning of novel object names. Results indicate that prompting and fading with reinforcement was an effective training procedure for teaching this child to follow the line of regard. However, this skill did not automatically lead to the child's learning the names of novel objects.

Infants 5-34 weeks of age were observed in their homes playing with their mothers as part of a longitudinal study. Two mother-infant dyads were observed once per week for twelve weeks, during a ten-minute play session. The purpose of the observation system is to describe contingencies leading to the development of attention-seeking behaviors in typically developing infants. Observations were coded using a type-based format (person engagement, object engagement, supported joint engagement, coordinated joint engagement, and unengaged). Child eye gaze, reaching, and grabbing were coded as well as all child and adult vocalizations. It is suggested that the data from the observation system will help inform and assess the effectiveness of infant and toddler social interventions in autism spectrum disorders and advance our understanding of attention seeking behaviors.