INFANT JOINT ATTENTION AND DEVELOPMENTAL OUTCOMES

确定婴幼儿儿童认知和行为结果的预测因子是基础和应用发展心理学的一个重要课题。对预测因素的描述对于及早确定儿童发育和行为障碍的“风险”以及对这些儿童的初级和二级干预的最佳目标至关重要。此外，婴儿和儿童能力之间的连续性的证据提供了关于人类心理发展本质的研究和理论的基础信息。因此，优先开展的研究不仅要确定新的婴儿评估方法，这将有助于婴儿评估组合的预测有效性，而且还要审查宪法和环境照料机制，这些机制可能有助于婴儿和儿童发展之间的连续性。然而，在这方面，无论是在关于婴儿预测因素的研究中，还是在关于联合注意的研究中，对于联合注意技能发展作为婴儿结果预测因素的个体差异的潜在重要性都没有给予足够的重视。尽管研究和理论表明，婴儿的联合注意力技能反映了社交认知能力、社交情绪能力和自我调节能力的各个方面，但预计这些能力可能与儿童的行为和认知结果有关。这项拟议的纵向研究旨在解决这一重要假设，并检查婴儿共同关注和儿童结果之间的连续性在多大程度上反映了照顾者和婴儿的体质因素。120名婴儿从6个月到36个月大，每隔4个月纵向跟踪观察一次。这项研究提供的数据有望：a)改善婴儿期的早期筛查和诊断，b)促进对婴儿期和幼儿期社会情感和认知发展的综合性质的理解，以及c)促进对在自闭症和其他形式的发育障碍中起基本作用的联合注意障碍的理解。

The identification of infant predictors of childhood cognitive and behavioral outcomes is an important topic for basic and applied developmental psychology. The description of predictors is critical to the early identification of children "at risk" for developmental and behavioral disorders and to the optimal targeting of primary and secondary interventions for these children. Furthermore, evidence of continuity between infant and childhood abilities provides information that is fundamental to research and theories on the nature of human psychological development. Therefore, a priority has been placed on research that not only identifies new methods of infant assessments that will contribute to the predictive validity of infant assessment batteries but also examines the constitutional and environmental- caregiving mechanisms that may contribute to continuity between infant and childhood development. In this regard, though, insufficient attention has been paid to the potential importance of individual differences in joint attention skill development as infant predictors of outcome, either in research on infant predictors or in research on joint attention. This despite research and theory that suggests that infant joint attention skills reflect aspects of social-cognitive, as well as social- emotional competence and self-regulatory, capacities that may be expected to relate to both behavioral and cognitive outcomes in childhood. The proposed longitudinal study has been designed to address this important hypothesis, as well as to examine the degree to which the continuity between infant joint attention and childhood outcomes reflect caregiver and infant constitutional factors. One hundred twenty infants will be followed longitudinally, at four-month intervals, from 6 to 36 months of age. The data provided by this study may be expected to: a) improve early screening and diagnosis in infancy, b)advances the understanding of the integrated nature of social emotional and cognitive development in infancy and early childhood, and c) advance the understanding of the joint attention disturbance that plays a fundamental role in autism, as well as other forms of developmental disorders.