Differences in joint attention are prominent for some children with autism and are often used as an indicator of the disorder. This study examined the joint attention competencies of young children with autism who demonstrated joint attention ability and compared them to children with developmental delays. A total of 40 children with autism and…

The study of affect comprehension in 15 children with pervasive developmental disorders (ages 7-10) and normal children matched for mental age found that the disabled children were impaired on affect matching compared to the controls and were impaired on face and affect matching relative to their own performance on object matching. (Author/DB)

Examined the relation between a history of maltreatment and cognitive control functioning in two groups of preschool and early school-age maltreated and nonmaltreated children. Maltreated children showed developmentally impaired cognitive control functioning on a number of tasks. (RH)

Forty-nine children (ages 8-17) with mental retardation recognized facial expressions less accurately than did subjects without retardation who were matched on chronological age. Mental age-matched groups showed no differences in accuracy at a younger mental age, but a difference was found at an older mental age. (Author/JDD)