Individual
Differences in Infant Attention Skills, Joint Attention
Abstract
This
study examined the concurrent and predictive relations between infant attention
skills, joint attention, and emotion regulation.
Infant’s gaze following skills and duration of orienting were assessed
at 6 months of age, and collaborative joint attention and emotion regulation
skills were assessed at 24 months of age. The
results indicated that infants’ ability to follow direction of gaze at 6
months was significantly correlated with emotion regulation strategy use at 24
months of age, and that collaborative joint attention at 24 months was
significantly correlated with emotion regulation strategy use at 24 months of
age. The results of this
study are consistent with previous research finding associations between
collaborative joint attention and children’s emotion regulation behavior.
These data also suggest that children’s preexisting visual attention
skills may contribute to their ability to regulate emotion.