Toddlers' Hands Organize Parent-Toddler Attention across Different Social Contexts

Toddlers and their parents achieve joint attention in many different social contexts. In some contexts, parents follow toddlers' attention; in other contexts, toddlers follow parents. Using a dual head-mounted eye-tracking paradigm and microlevel analyses of behavior, we examined the sensorimotor properties of parent-toddler joint attention both in episodes where parents followed their toddlers' focus of attention and episodes where parents directed their toddlers' attention. Our results revealed that across both contexts the degree to which parents and toddlers engaged in sustained joint attention was predicted by toddlers' manual engagement with the target object. These results deepen our understanding of the sensorimotor and micro-level processes that shape joint attention and underscore the interconnections between early motor and social developments.