Authors: Matthew W Mosconi J Steven Reznick Gary Mesibov Joseph Piven
Publish Date: 2008/07/22
Volume: 39, Issue: 2, Pages: 242-250
Abstract
Children with autism show deficits in social referencing joint attention orienting to their names and social smiling as early as the first year of life The present study describes the development of the Social Orienting Continuum and Response Scale SOCRS a quantitative scale assessing each of these behaviors during the course of videorecorded Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule ADOS sessions The SOCRS was shown to be reliable and valid and when applied to a longitudinal sample of children studied at 2 and 4 years of age was shown to be sensitive to decreased levels of social referencing joint attention orienting to name and social smiling in autism The implications of these findings and potential applications of the SOCRS are discussedSocial referencing Instances in which the child is observed looking directly at another person’s face It must be clear that the child is looking at the person’s face and not another part of the body and not at a proximal object Also the child must fixate on the person’s face rather than glancing past him/herJoint Attention Responding Events in which the examiner parent or other individual attempt to direct the child’s attention to an object via establishing attention and shifting his or her gaze should be scored as Joint Attention Responding opportunity If the child redirects his/her attention in the direction indicated by the person who initiated the bid then they should be scored as having responded to joint attentionJoint Attention Initiating Events in which the child initiates a joint attention should be coded separately from Joint Attention Responding In order for this behavior to be scored the child must seek to get another individual to attend to an object or person of interest either by a shift in eye gaze or a distal point The child must further reference the individual with whom they are interacting Only responses that are “protodeclarative” in nature should be scored “Protodeclarative” responses include those in which the primary goal of the interaction is to share attention or enjoyment or find out information about an object eg pointing and asking “What’s that” In contrast “protoimperative” episodes are those in which the child includes another individual solely as a means to obtain an objectSocial smiling Any event in which the child shows a clear and appropriate smile that involves attention to the face of a social partner should be scored Pretend emotions as in the course of playing also may be scored if clearly indicated and appropriate to the context ie not stereotypic or inconsistent with the context
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