Joint attention
공동 주의
Also known as: shared attention
A state in which adult and child attend to the same thing. Names given at that moment stick best.
Tomasello and Farrar reported that children learn new words better when an adult labels what the child is already attending to, rather than redirecting the child's attention to label something else (1986).
The practice is simple: do not choose the target, label what the child is pointing at.
It is also why building word cards from a family photo works: a photo of a child's room is full of things the child already looks at.
- AgeTypically emerges between 9 and 12 months.
- Applying itWhen the child points, name that thing, briefly and repeatedly.