BACB ACE CEUs: 1.0
Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | YouTube
What exactly is Joint Attention? How does Joint Attention interact with Eye Contact? What does the literature say about these repertoires, and how does that coincide with self-reports of the aversive nature of eye contact from Autistic people?
These have been a few of the questions rolling around in my head for some time. A few years ago, we briefly touched on this subject with my guest today, Dr. Francesca Degli Espinosa, but it was in the backdrop of a larger panel discussion at the 2022 Verbal Behavior Conference.
Fast forward to 2023, I recently heard Francesca on Dr. Mary Barbera's show talk about Joint Attention in great detail, so I asked her to join me to extend the conversation.
In this show, we cover:
- What people mean when they use the term Joint Attention
- How JA typically develops in infancy and beyond
- Why 'attention' may not be an especially helpful term
- Some of the neuroscience and eye tracking studies that have examined the development of eye contact in typically developing and Autistic populations
- How to increase the value of looking at peoples' faces
- Why eye contact should be thought of as a reinforcing consequence
- Some strategies to foster JA in the context of learner assent
- The difficulty of integrating the findings of different literatures that publish research in the area of Autism
- What she's talking about at this year's Stone Soup Conference (spoiler alert: She's going to go deep into this topic, and remember, save on your registration by using the promo code PODCAST)
- The problem associated with teaching eye contact via the 'look at me' method
Here are some of the links to the many resources we discussed:
- 2022 Verbal Behavior Conference Panel Discussion
- Francesca on Mary Barbera's podcast
- Francesca's available online courses
- Dube et al. (2004). Toward a Behavioral Analysis of Joint Attention
- Silva and Fiske (2020). Evaluating the Effects of Establishing Eye Contact on the Skill Acquisition of Individuals with Autism
- Nuske et al. (2015). No Evidence of Emotional Dysregulation or Aversion to Mutual Gaze in Preschoolers with Autism Spectrum Disorder: An Eye-Tracking Pupillometry Study
- Clin and Kissine (2023). Neurotypical, but not autistic, adults might experience distress when looking at someone avoiding eye contact: A live face-to-face paradigm
- A sample of the many eye tracking studies conducted by Dr. Ami Klin and colleagues
You must log in to submit a review.