Quality Childcare and Joint Attention

This study examined the experiences of infants and toddlers in New Zealand child care centres to evaluate whether they provided opportunities for learning in the context of shared attention. One hundred childcare centres througough New Zealand comprised the centre sample. Running records were carried out on 200 under 2‐year‐old children (99 boys and 101 girls, two children from each centre) for 20 minutes each. Two hundred and thirty six episodes of sustained joint attention were observed during running records, most commonly during object/toy related play, but also at a relatively high level during caregiving routines, book/picture related activities, messy creative activities and large motor play. A third of all children in the study participated in no joint attention episodes at all. Just over half (51.3%) of episodes were child‐initiated and just under half were adult‐initiated. Centres with no joint attention episodes scored significantly lower on the Assessment Profile Infant Score and centres with smaller group sizes and some Diploma level trained staff had more episodes of joint attention. Qualitative data provided evidence of staff sensitivity and responsiveness, close relationships between staff and children, reciprocity between staff and child, the central importance of language and shared meaning and the richness of joint attention episodes as a context for learning.