Hi everyone. Just some quick questions regarding joint attention. I've been learning about it recently due to my anxiety over my son's development.
From what I understand, joint attention is when two people are able to focus on the same thing, with one person alerting or informing the other of the thing in question.
Question 1: Does it matter the means with which it is achieved? For my son (just about 15 months), I can direct his attention via pointing very easily, he will look at almost everything I point at very directly. I can also do this with exclamations, example: if I say "look at the octopus", he recognizes the octopus painting we have in our living room, and will usually look right at it after I say that (and sometimes point to it himself), and he will also sometimes look back at me for confirmation.
However, I realized recently that he doesn't really follow my gaze alone. My gaze is almost always accompanied by pointing or an exclamation. Recently I tested this by looking up at the ceiling and looking back at my son, and he was still just looking at me, not up. I tried this a few times too, and the result was the same.
Is this something I should be concerned about?
Question 2: My son brings me things and holds things up to "show" me all the time. Isn't that technically him trying to initiate joint attention with me?