Abstract

Children with Autism present difficulties in social communication. Some of those difficulties are being reflected in a deficit in Joint Attention (JA). JA is a set of skills required for sharing interest with a social partner towards a joint point of referral. These kinds of behaviors include the use of eye contact or gestures, or a combination of the two (Mundy, 1995). There is a distinction between different behaviors: When one uses JA behaviors to share interest it is called Initiation of Joint Attention (IJA); When it is used to react to such an invitation it is called Response to Joint Attention (RJA). In the last years there is growing belief that one can explain the main difficulties in Autism through the joint attention mechanism (Charman, 2003; Mundy, 2016; Mundy & Crowson, 1997).

JA plays a major part in the development of communication and social abilities in young children and is related to the development of other functions in Autism (Charman, 2003; Mundy et al., 2007). For example, JA was found to predict language development and was related to play and imitation abilities. Additionally, JA skills are predictive for Autism from the first year of life (Gotham, et al., 2008; Ibanez, Grantz, & Messinger, 2013; Mundy, Sullivan, & Mastergeorge., 2009). However, there research body of the possible connection between JA and symptom severity is scarce.

Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to investigate whether there is a link between JA and symptom severity. A unique feature of this study is the longitudinal design that was made to explore how changes is JA between the different time points are related to the changes in the severity of the symptoms. It was hypothesized that improvement in JA skills through time will predict a reduction of the Autistic symptoms. Level of functioning was also included in the study and was checked for moderation effects.

The findings support the hypothesis partially. It was found that changes in JA were related to changes in the communication scale only; Level of functioning did not moderate this effect. These findings support partially the assumption about the part that JA has in the development of symptoms in Autism. However, there is a need for future research to deepen our understating of the mechanism that generate this association.

The current study has implications for research; it points to need for future studies in this specific field. Additionally, it highlights the importance of promoting JA in treatment to improve an important aspect of the prognosis of children with Autism.