Joint attention and language in autism and developmental language delay.

The team compared autistic children to children with developmental language delay.

Both groups had similar mental age and sentence length.

They watched how each child used pointing, showing, and pronouns like ‘I’ and ‘you.’

The autistic group used far fewer pointing and showing gestures.

They also mixed up ‘I’ and ‘you’ more often.

The gap was not just a side effect of slow language; it was autism-specific.

Rapport et al. (1996) saw the same pattern ten years later: preschoolers with autism looked at adults less during play.

Abrahamsen et al. (1990) tracked the same kids for 13 months and found that early pointing predicted later language better than IQ.

Pitetti et al. (2007) then proved you can fix the gap: three toddlers learned to point and show after parents were coached at home.

Together the story is clear: the deficit is real, it matters for language, and you can teach it.

If you assess a child with autism, add a quick joint-attention probe.

Note how often the child points to share interest, not just to request.

When scores are low, start teaching pointing and showing right away; parent-mediated play works and may spare later language problems.