Remember this: You’re looking at a truck. A young child is with you, and he follows your gaze. He’s interested in the object you’re looking at, even without you pointing at it. This is called joint attention, and it is one of the primary ways children learn to connect words with objects and acquire language.

Lack of joint attention is a key characteristic of autism. Previously, it was believed that encouraging joint attention in individuals with autism would assist them in verbal expression. However, a meta-analysis of 71 autism studies challenges this assumption and suggests that individuals with autism may acquire language differently.

The authors reviewed studies on joint attention and language in autistic children since 1994. They included studies that provided clear measures of structural language, such as vocabulary size, and excluded those that only measured communication skills. In typically developing individuals, social interaction is crucial for language development. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that the ability to establish a shared attentional frame may increase opportunities for autistic children to focus on language and participate in communicative experiences, as stated by the authors of the study.

However, their meta-analysis did not find significant language gains from interventions aimed at promoting social communication in individuals with autism.

“It is somewhat paradoxical to link language development to joint attention in autism. This is because a significant number of autistic children who become verbal still retain a diagnosis of autism, which is characterized by atypically low joint attention. For example, children with Asperger’s syndrome often develop advanced language abilities without developing equivalent social skills.”

Of the 71 studies, only 28 reported a correlation between joint attention stimulation in young autistic children and the development of simple vocabulary.

“These studies indicate that joint attention is linked to a very basic vocabulary of fewer than five words. However, they cannot predict whether the child will be able to communicate effectively by the ages of 7 or 8,” noted Mottron. Additionally, twenty-five other studies have found no correlation between joint attention and vocabulary development in children with autism.

“It is possible that autistic people learn language differently without social interaction,” he adds. “For example, in immigrant populations whose native language is not English, autistic children learn English by looking at digital tablets and never learn to speak their parents’ language.”

If some children with autism are less sensitive to the human voice than to the written word, this could open up new avenues for intervention, Mottron says. “In this case, we should redirect autistic children towards exposure to non-communicative language, in addition to talking to them.”

The study therefore opens the door to new ways of addressing neurodiversity.