Joint attention and social referencing in children with autism: a behavior-analytic approach

ABSTRACT Joint attention and social referencing involve behavior patterns that are typically learned during infancy. Deficits in both skills are more common in children with autism spectrum disorder thus, early intervention on the acquisition of these critical social skills may mitigate later developmental delays. We discuss the learning of behavior chains that result from operant contingencies in natural social environments. We offer a behavior analytic interpretation of both joint attention and social referencing and identify the research that has already set the foundation for establishing how we can teach young children with autism initiating and responding to joint attending and social referencing.