Young children are at a higher risk for maltreatment than older children. These children also have some of the most maladaptive outcomes than their older counterparts. In general, not all maltreated children exhibit clinically significant behavioral disturbance. Therefore, it is vital that the processes that contribute to risk and resilience in very young maltreated children be better understood in order to devise successful intervention efforts for these families. Joint attention, a type of nonverbal social communication during which infants and their caregivers coordinate their attention with regard to an object or event, may provide information about mechanisms that contribute to both negative and positive developmental outcomes in these children. Better developed joint attention skills have been significantly associated with better language, cognitive and social-emotional outcomes in typically developing and developmentally disabled populations. Decreases in joint attention have been associated with increases in behavioral disturbance and disorganized attachments in typically developing and high-risk populations. The proposed study will utilize archival data for approximately 300 maltreated children who were seen yearly in the first four years of life and who will be followed longitudinally until adolescence. Joint attention between infants and toddlers and their caregivers will be coded using archival videotaped interactions. It is hypothesized that maltreatment negatively impacts joint attention development that in turn negatively impacts child outcomes such as language, cognitive and behavioral outcomes. It is likely that joint attention will mediate the relations between maltreatment, maternal dysphoria, maternal history of violence exposure and language, cognitive and behavioral outcomes in this sample. The data in the proposed study will provide important new information about joint attention development in young maltreated children and begin to address specific areas that will be targeted in later intervention efforts. ? ? ?
