JOINT ATTENTION AND SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL APPROACH BEHAVIOR IN CHILDREN WITH AUTISM

Autism is a development disorder that is characterized by a significan t disturbance of social development. Research strongly suggests that t his disorder results from neurological anomalies or deficits. However, both the specific neural systems involved in autism, and the most per tinent behavioral functions of those systems remains unclear. One curr ent topic of debate concerns the degree to which the social disturbanc e of autism may result from developmental anomalies in neurological sy stems that subserve cognitive, or affective processes. In this paper a model of the neurological, cognitive, and affective processes involve d in the pathogenesis of autism will be described in the context of an attempt to understand dissociations in the early social-skill develop ment of these children. Young children with autism are better able to use social-communication gestures to request objects or events than th ey are able to use similar gesture simply to initiate joint or sociall y shared attention relative to an object or event. An integration of r ecent research suggests that joint attention skill development differs from requesting skill development with regard to affective and cognit ive processes that may be associated with frontal and midbrain neurolo gical systems. In particular, this integration of the literature sugge sts the following: (a) there is a specific neurological subsystem that regulates and promotes what are called social-emotional approach beha viors; (b) the tendency to initiate joint attention bids is prototypic al of a social-emotional approach behavior; and (c) attenuation of soc ial-approach behaviors in children with autism leads to a specific imp overishment of social information processing opportunities. This impov erishment has a lifelong negative effect on the social cognitive devel opment of these children.