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Joint-Attention and the Social Phenotype of School-Aged Children with ASD

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Abstract

The validity of joint attention assessment in school-aged children with ASD is unclear (Lord, Jones, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 53(5):490–509, 2012). This study examined the feasibility and validity of a parent-report measure of joint attention related behaviors in verbal children and adolescents with ASD. Fifty-two children with ASD and 34 controls were assessed with the Childhood Joint Attention Rating Scale (C-JARS). The C-JARS exhibited internally consistency, α = 0.88, and one factor explained 49% of the scale variance. Factor scores correctly identified between 88 and 94% of the children with ASD and 62–82% of controls. These scores were correlated with the ADOS-2, but not other parent-report symptom measures. The C-JARS appears to assess a unique dimension of the social-phenotype of children with ASD.

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Notes

  1. The evidence for a Diagnostic Group difference on the C-JARS joint attention factor score was also observed in a follow-up analyses that included the combined Conner’s Inattentive and Hyperactivity scores as a second covariate in the ANCOVA but with a lower effect size estimate, F (1,75) = 10.5, p < .002, eta2 = 0.12.

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Acknowledgments

Support for this research was provided by NIMH 1R21MH085904, IES grant R324A120168, and the UC Davis Department of Psychiatry Lisa Capps Endowment for Research on Neurodevelopmental Disorders, Department of Psychiatry, UC Davis.

Author contributions

PM conceived and developed the measure, designed and coordinated this study, performed the statistical analyses and drafted the manuscript; SN collaborated on assessment item selection, coordinated pilot testing and collaborated on the draft of the manuscript; LS-L collaborated on the design of the study, drafting the manuscript, and coordinated data collection for the study; NM collaborated on the design of the study, drafting the manuscript and collected data for the study; MZ collaborated on the design of the study, drafting the manuscript and collected data for the study; TO collaborated on the design of the study, drafting the manuscript and collected data for the study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. UC Davis School of Education, University of California (UC) Davis, One Shields Ave., Davis, CA, 95616, USA

    Peter Mundy, Lindsey Swain-Lerro, Nancy McIntyre & Matt Zajic

  2. MIND Institute, UC Davis, 2825 50th Street, Sacramento, CA, 95817, USA

    Peter Mundy & Tasha Oswald

  3. Institute of Living, Olin Neuropsychiatry Research Center, Hartford, CT, USA

    Stephanie Novotny

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Correspondence to Peter Mundy.

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P. Mundy, S. Novotny, L. Swain Lerro, N. McIntrye, M. Zajic and T. Oswald declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent (parents) and assent (children) was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Mundy, P., Novotny, S., Swain-Lerro, L. et al. Joint-Attention and the Social Phenotype of School-Aged Children with ASD. J Autism Dev Disord 47, 1423–1435 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-017-3061-0

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