# AURMundySullivanMastergeorge2009 **Keywords:** early development, neural connectivity, social symptoms **Opening (not a real abstract):** A Parallel and Distributed-Processing Model of Joint Attention, Social Cognition and Autism Peter Mundy, Lisa Sullivan, and Ann M. Mastergeorge The impaired development of joint attention is a cardinal feature of autism. Therefore, understanding the nature of joint attention is central to research on this disorder. Joint attention may be best defined in terms of an information-processing system that begins to develop by 4–6 months of age. This system integrates the parallel processing of internal information about one’s own visual attention with external information about the visual attention of other people. This type of joint encoding of information about self and other attention requires the activation of a distributed anterior and posterior cortical attention network. Genetic regulation, in conjunction with self-organizing behavioral activity, guides **Authors:** [[Cognition and Autism]]