1. ? POINTING STUDY IN CHILDREN WITH AUTISM Results Introduction Method
De Martino, S., , Girardot, A.M., Kanta, T., Chatel, C. , Rey , V., Poinso, F.
Autism Resource Center., Psychiatric Hospital, Marseille,
CNRS, EHESS (UMR 8562), Marseille, France
Results
Introduction
Pointing seems to be one of the first communicative tools used by babies. It is a key part of the shared attention mechanism in child-adult interaction.The declarative pointing may be a precursor of language (Desrochers et al., 1995). Joint attention is a skill which also plays an important role in the development of lexical skills.The absence of declarative pointing is considered as one of the most important signs of autism. Nevertheless, imperative pointing or instrumental gestures are relatively preserved in their repertoire (Loveland et al., 1986 ; Mundy et al. 1986).
H1/ Given the fact that declarative pointing plays an important role in emergence of language skills, is there a correlation between language, declarative pointing and joint attention in verbal autistic children ?
H2/ Concerning non verbal autistic children which is the difference between imperative pointing and instrumental gestures ?
Method 
ECSP (Guidetti & Tourette, 1992)
Ages in joint attention (JA)
2 groups
JA : 11 months < JA : 19 months
20 Non Verbal autistic children (CA : 41months)
10 Verbal autistic children (CA : 44 months)
Declarative pointing
Correlation between declarative pointing and joint attention and lexical skills ?
No declarative pointing
Joint attention (Months)
Discussion
1/ The results indicate that declarative pointing is present in autistic children with verbal skills. There is a correlation between joint attention, declarative pointing and lexical skills. Declarative pointing seems to be a precursor of lexicall skills in autistic children, as it is in typical children and it may appear over 13 months.
2/ In the absence of language, two kinds of gestures for communicative purposes exist : instrumental gestures and imperative pointing. But, unlike instrumental gestures, imperative pointing is a conventional gesture.
Different profiles in autistic children :
Non verbal children with only intentional but not conventional gestures (instrumental gestures)
Non verbal children with conventional gestures (Imperative pointing)
Verbal children with conventional gestures (declarative pointing)
REFERENCES
Desrochers et al., Two perspectives on pointing in infancy. In : C Moore and P.J. Duham Editors, Joint attention. Its origins and role in development, Erlbaum, Hillsdate, NJ (1995)
Loveland et al., Joint attention and language in autism and developmental language delay. J Autism Dev Disord 16 (1986)
Mundy et al., Defining the social deficits of autism : the contribution of non verbal communication measures. J Child Psychol Psychiatry 27 (1986)
Guidetti & Tourette, Evaluation de la communication sociale précoce, EAP Editors, Paris (1992)