Taking a closer look at social and cognitive skills: A weekly longitudinal assessment between 7 and 10 months of age

Joint attention is necessary for a range of effective human interaction abilities such as imitation and language. The development of joint attention abilities across a variety of contexts was assessed on a weekly basis for 16 infants who were between 7 and 10 months. In this study representing over 220 visits, we present an exploratory data analysis on the development and interrelations among social and cognitive tasks. Results show that the development of social cognitive skills is highly complex. Most skills did not develop in a consistent way, and were not highly related. These findings add to our growing understanding of the development of social cognitive skills in the first year, and the interrelations among specific skills between the ages of 7 and 10 months.