EEG correlates of the development of infant joint attention skills

The development of the capacity for social attention coordination, or "join t attention," is a major milestone of infancy. Data from a recent study of handicapped infants have raised the hypothesis that the tendency to initiat e bids for joint attention may reflect processes associated with the fronta l cortex to a greater extent than other forms of infant attention coordinat ion (R. Caplan et al., 1993). This hypothesis was examined in a longitudina l study of 32 normally developing infants. The results indicated that EEG d ata at 14 months indicative of left frontal, as well as left and right cent ral cortical activity, was associated with the tendency to initiate joint a ttention bids (IJA) at 14 and 18 months. In contrast, a pattern of left par ietal activation and right parietal deactivation at 14 months was associate d with the development of the capacity to respond to the joint attention bi ds (RJA) of others of 14 and 18 months. These results were interpreted to b e consistent with a general anterior-posterior model of attention developme nt (M. Posner & S. Petersen, 1990). The implications of these results for c urrent conceptualizations of joint attention development, as well as for un derstanding the disturbance of joint attention skill development in autism are discussed. (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons Inc. Dev Psychobiol 36: 325-338, 2000.