Brief Report: Linking Early Joint Attention and Play Abilities to Later Reports of Friendships for Children with ASD.
Stronger joint attention and play at age three forecast closer, less conflicted friendships five years later in kids with ASD.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Freeman et al. (2015) watched children with autism who were three years old.
They scored how well each child shared eye-gaze and played with toys.
Five years later they asked the same kids about their school friendships.
What they found
Kids who had stronger joint attention at age three felt closer to friends at age eight.
They also said their friendships had less fighting.
Better play skills at three predicted they gave more help to friends later.
How this fits with other research
Bottema-Beutel (2016) shows joint attention links tightly to language, not just friends.
Chang et al. (2016) found only one in five preschoolers with autism had a classroom friend, matching the idea that early joint attention is weak.
Petrina et al. (2016) adds that kids with autism and their friends often disagree on how good the friendship is, so check both sides.
Lawton et al. (2012) proved we can teach joint attention and play to preschoolers, giving hope the friendship gap can shrink.
Why it matters
You now have a five-year reason to target joint attention and play before kindergarten.
Add brief joint-attention probes to your intake.
If scores are low, fold shared-gaze and turn-taking goals into play routines.
Track progress each quarter; the payoff may show up in lunch-room friendships instead of just vocabulary lists.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study examined the influence of early joint attention and play in children with autism on child- and parent-reported friendship quality 5 years later. Initially, children participated in developmental, joint attention, and play measures. At follow-up (age 8-9), parents and children completed the Friendship Qualities Scale (Bukowski et al. in J Soc Personal Relatsh 11:471-484, 1994) rating the child's friendship on companionship, help, security, closeness, and conflict. Parents and children described their children's friendships similarly except children's ratings were significantly higher than their parents on companionship. Children with better joint attention at age three reported their friendships to have higher closeness and lower conflict. Children with better initial play reported greater helpfulness. This study provides preliminary evidence linking early core abilities to later friendship qualities.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2015 · doi:10.1007/s10803-015-2369-x