Coherence has also served as a neural tool in relation to infant social development, specifically in research on initiating joint attention (IJA; Mundy et al., 2000, 2003). Mundy et al. (2000) found that lower coherence (i.e., greater differentiation/specialization) between left frontal/central sites at 14 months related to greater IJA at 18 months. Left hemisphere coherence between frontal/central sites at 14 months was also negatively correlated with vocabulary at 24 months, and coherence between left frontal/occipital sites was positively correlated with vocabulary (Mundy et al., 2003). Additionally, greater IJA skill at 14 months was highly associated with greater vocabulary at 24 months (Mundy et al., 2003). Thus, individual differences in infants’ IJA and neural development are both related to future vocabulary.
