It’s a belated birthday episode for Diana! In her honor we’re talking about joint attention, one of the primary deficits noted in most children with autism. This week we discuss what joint attention is, which treatments are effective for improving responses and initiation to joint attention, and how a trip to Uncle Moe’s Family Feedbag might be the ideal environment to master the skill. Happy birthday, Diana!

Articles discussed this episode:

Taylor, B.A. & Hoch, H. (2008). Teaching children with autism to respond to and initiate bids for joint attention. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 41, 377-391. doi: 10.1901/jaba.2008.41-377

Klein, J.L., MacDonald, R.F.P, Vaillancourt, G., Ahearn, W.H., & Dube, W.V. (2009). Teaching discrimination of adult gaze direction to children with autism. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorder, 3, 42-49. doi: 10.1016/j.rasd.2008.03.006

Isaksen, J. & Holth, P. (2009). An operant approach to teaching joint attention skills to children with autism. Behavioral Interventions, 24, 215-236. doi: 10.1002/bin.292

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