Sharing sounds: The development of auditory joint engagement during early parent–child interaction.

Joint engagement-the sharing of events during social interactions-is an important context for early learning. To date, sharing topics that are only heard has not been systematically documented. To describe the development of auditory joint engagement, 48 child-parent dyads were observed 5 times from 12 to 30 months during seminaturalistic play. Reactions to 4 types of sounds-overheard speech about the child, instrumental music, animal calls, and...