Joint attention and infant toy exploration: effects of Down syndrome and prematurity.

12-month-old infants with Down syndrome (n = 14) and mental and motor age-matched high-risk preterm infants (n = 14) were studied with respect to their ability to attend to and explore their environment in interactions with their mothers. The effectiveness of particular maternal attention-directing techniques in modifying infant responses to toys was expected to vary across the 2 infant groups. In general, higher-level responses to toys were expected to be associated with mother's attempts to maintain rather than redirect the child's attention and the mother's use of structured verbal and nonverbal attention-directing techniques. Results indicated that mothers of the 2 groups of infants used different attention-directing strategies, and their use of particular strategies was differentially related to the attentional capacity of the 2 groups. Differences in the infants' responses to particular maternal strategies were related to the amount of structure provided and to the demands placed on their capacity to shift attention between objects. Fewer specific maternal techniques for directing attention elicited higher-level play behavior from the Down syndrome infants, compared to the preterm group.