﻿Hello everybody. My name's Emma. I'm really looking forward to today's session and I hope you are too. But before we get started, just a quick reminder. We here at Oak are trying to support any approaches you might already be using and any work that you might have already been set. We know this lesson is going out to so many different children and families. So if you're not sure or have questions then please contact your usual speech and language therapy team or your child's school. In today's session, I'm going to be talking about joint attention. Together, we're going to be doing some thinking about how you can communicate joint attention with your adults. We'll be having some play time and during this play, I'll be setting the adults some tasks. These tasks will help you to get the most out of your play together and work towards developing your joint attention. So for today's session, you'll need some toys, some balloons, and adults, you'll need some writing equipment, some bubbles if you've got them and the downloadable resources available on the Oak website with this lesson. Before we begin, find a quiet place where you won't be disturbed for the lesson. Turn off any distractions including any conversations that you might have running on the device that you're using watching this lesson. Make sure that you're both seated comfortably and so when you're ready, we can begin. Okay. Let's start by doing some talking and thinking about joint attention. Joint attention is when two people can attract each other's attention to look at the same object or activity. There are two key features of how joint attention develops. The first is that the child is able to respond to an adult's bid for attention and follow their gaze. This might be calling the child's name and looking towards an object. Second is that the child is able to attract the adult's attention themselves and is then able to direct this attention to look towards an object or an activity. For example, looking backwards and forwards between a person and an object while pointing with the eyes as if to say, "Hey, look at that, did you see that?" We talked about learning to look in lesson four and we know there are three steps to this. First the child needs to learn to look towards a person, then be able to follow their gaze to an object, and lastly, be able to attract the person's attention to the object by looking. This is all part of joint attention. We're going to start off today's lesson by having a bit of play. Children, I'd like you to find something you'd really like to play with. You and your adult are going to have five minutes of special time and they're going to follow your lead. Adults, let's use this play time to remind ourselves of how we follow the child's lead. You need to stop and look at that play. When they look to an object, follow their lead and respond by picking it up and giving it to them or doing an action with it. Do this a couple of times over your five-minute play and see where you get. When you finish, come back to the video and press Play and we'll continue with the lesson. Before we continue, I'd like you to take a moment to just pause and reflect. Adults, how did the child respond when you picked up and gave them the objects that they were looking at? What signals did they give you? When children are secure in their ability to initiate and respond to joint attention, it means they're ready to take the next steps in developing their communication. This might include starting to move or act in a way before an event to show their likes or dislikes. For example, getting excited before snack time because they know snack is coming. It might look like beginning to explore with more vocalisations or imitating the adults vocalisations. They also might be becoming more responsive to an adults different facial expressions and tone of voice. The key thing we might notice is that children may begin to initiate interactions in familiar situations, more readily. This might look like smiling when a familiar person approaches them in a familiar situation. We can work towards extending joint attention with our children through play. We can do this by creating as many opportunities for fun and exciting looking, adding bright, colourful, and interesting sensory objects into our play is a really great place to start. You can use these objects to encourage the child to look towards you and track the objects with their eyes. We can add lots of excitement and enthusiasm in our voice to really raise the profile of these objects too. Remember our key strategy though is to respond and reward to the child's gaze by interpreting their message. If they're looking at an object and then to you are they asking for more? And if they are, we need to be acting on it. We need to be showing children that when they're communicating by looking towards an object they're going to get what they want. And that communication is well worth the effort. Here up are a few ideas for objects or items that could be added to special time to give it that extra wow factor. It could be anything that's a real high interest to your child, but my thoughts are bubbles, flashing toys, spinning objects, objects that produce noise, or objects that move in an interesting way. You might have some more specific ideas because you know your child best and you know what they really love to play with. Work with these ideas as well as what you know about your child when you're thinking about adding extra special activities into play. Why don't we have a go practising what we've just talked about with some bubbles. Adults, I'd like you to use this opportunity to practise using your voice to show lots of interest and enthusiasm. Make sure that you close the pot of bubbles after every blow and hold the container near your face. This will encourage the child to look towards you and indicate that they want more bubbles. Make sure that with every communication or signal that they are giving you, you're responding and giving the child what they want, more bubbles. When you finish your bubble time, come back to the video and press Play and we'll continue with the lesson. Before we continue, I'd like you to take a moment to just reflect. Adults, was the child able to look towards you to show they wanted more? How often did they look towards you to show they wanted more? And were there any other signals that they gave you? Once you've had a moment to think about this, press Play to continue. When we're working on joint attention with the children, it's really important that we keep things short. Short and sweet. Avoid turning this or any other kind of play-based activity into a battle of wills. We don't want any negative association with play or any of the objects that we're trying to introduce. Instead, we can keep encouraging the child by saying their name. Don't be afraid to add more excitement enthusiasm into your voice. This will only be an extra hook into the activity. I've talked about this a couple of times over the last few videos, but you can use objects to increase fascination with your eyes or face like an interesting hat or pair of sunglasses. This would just give another exciting thing to look at in the play. It will also help that they're near the looking area. Perseverance with positivity is absolutely key though. Try to maintain warmth and positive facial expression throughout your play so that you're praising and reinforcing any joint attention no matter how fleeting it is. Remember there are golden rules when introducing new objects. Adults, it's a lot to remember but it's well worth it. Make sure that you're positioning yourself so you're facing the child and you're at their level, say their name to gain their attention and keep the objects near your face. This will mean that they're in the child's line of sight and that they'll learn to look to you for more. Use your face, voice, and simple words to build interest. And don't forget the vital stop, look lesson. Wait for the child to show you how they feel about the object and give them time to organise this response. Observe any messages and always respond. Respond to any bid for attention so that we're reinforcing that this communication is worth it. Don't forget you can also say something about the activity so that you're inserting some language and getting that holistic and really enriching play opportunity. So one last exciting activity before you go today. We're going to play with some balloons. Adults, I'd like you to have a go introducing some balloons into your play. Use the golden rules for developing joint attention. Have a go blowing these balloons up, using your voice to show lots of enthusiasm, labelling a few key words like blow, or bigger, and then finish the activity off by letting the balloon fly off all over the room to really captivate the child's attention. Pick the balloon up and hold it in the child's line of sight near your face. Let's try and get them looking towards you for more balloon play. When you finished having a couple of gos with this activity, come back and press Play and we'll finish the lesson off. Before we continue, just take one more moment to reflect. Was the child able to look to you to show they wanted more? Adults, remember the downloadable resource on the Oak website is available for you to give you more ideas for the types of play that could broaden and promote the child's joint attention. Record and reflect on how your child responds and engages to any new or interesting activities that you introduced into that play. Well, that brings us to the end of today's lesson. A really big well done on all the fantastic learning you've achieved today. I've got two final things I'd like you and your adult to do. Adults, the first thing is for you. Please look back over your notes from today and identify three important things that you're going to take away with you. It's totally up to you what they are. Secondly, children, if you're able to, please take a photo of your special time or some of the new and interesting activities that you've been playing with and record this in your special time diary in the resources attached. Ask your parent or carer to share your special time diary with your teacher at school so that they can see the fantastic progress that you're making with your joint attention. And if you'd like, you could also ask your parent or carer to send a picture of your record book, to @OakNational on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram so that I can see your lovely progress key. Well, all that's left for me to say is thank you. So take care and enjoy the rest of your learning. Bye bye.

Explore joint attention. Joint attention is the next step on from joint engagement. Joint attention is a specific skill that involves being able to attract and direct another's attention to an object or activity.

In this lesson, we will explore joint attention. Joint attention is the next step on from joint engagement. Joint attention is a specific skill that involves being able to attract and direct another's attention to an object or activity. Resources provided by University of Gloucestershire (CC BY-NC-SA: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0)

Lesson overview:Joint Attention

Core Content

Equipment Required

Attention and listening: