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Although joint attention processes are known to play an important role in adaptive social behavior in typical development, we know little about these processes in clinical child populations. We compared early school age children with selective mutism (SM; n = 19) versus mixed anxiety (MA; n = 18) and community controls (CC; n = 26) on joint attention measures coded from direct observations with their parent during an unstructured free play task and two structured tasks. As predicted, the SM dyads established significantly fewer episodes of joint attention through parental initiation acts than the MA and CC dyads during the structured tasks. Findings suggest that children with SM may withdraw from their parents during stressful situations, thus missing out on opportunities for learning other coping skills. We discuss the implications of the present findings for understanding the maintenance and treatment of SM.

The authors examined the longitudinal relation between joint attention and socioemotional functioning in a low-risk, typically developing sample of children when the children were toddlers and again during the early school-age years. Fifty-eight mothers and their children were observed in the home or laboratory engaging in 1 unstructured and 4 semistructured tasks designed to assess joint attention episodes when the children were toddlers. Approximately 4 years later, the mother–child dyads were contacted again and mothers completed the Child Behavior Checklist as a measure of their children’s socioemotional outcome at the early school years. The authors found that lower frequencies of joint attention episodes at toddlerhood predicted higher internalizing behaviors at early school age. Preliminary findings are discussed in terms of their theoretical implications for work on early mother–child interactions and children’s typical and atypical sociemotional development. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We examined receptive language and academic abilities in children with selective mutism (SM; n = 30; M age = 8.8 years), anxiety disorders (n = 46; M age = 9.3 years), and community controls (n = 27; M age = 7.8 years). Receptive language and academic abilities were assessed using standardized tests completed in the laboratory. We found a significant group by sex interaction for receptive vocabulary scores such that, within females, the SM and mixed anxiety groups had significantly lower receptive vocabulary scores than community controls. We also found that children with SM and children with anxiety disorders had significantly lower mathematics scores than community controls. Despite these differences in mathematics and receptive vocabulary performance, children with SM and children with anxiety disorders still performed at age-level norms, while more children in the community control group performed above age-level norms. Findings suggest that despite their speaking inhibition in the school setting, children with SM are still able to attain the receptive vocabulary and academic abilities that are expected at their age levels. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]