ATTENTION REGULATION BY CHILDREN WITH DOWN-SYNDROME - COORDINATED JOINT ATTENTION AND SOCIAL REFERENCING LOOKS

We examined attention regulation of children in two different situatio ns designed to elicit triadic interactions (i.e., between self, other, and object). Thirty-five children with Down syndrome and 23 children with typical development were observed in a semi-structured adult-chil d interaction designed to elicit coordinated joint attention and an am biguous situation in which a moving robot prompted an emotional respon se from the adults in order to elicit social referencing looks from th e child. Children with Down syndrome engaged in significantly fewer so cial referencing looks. Group differences were not found for coordinat ed joint attention looks, suggesting that the difficulty for children with Down syndrome is in cognitive appraisal abilities.