I Yawn, You Yawn, Everybody Yawns -- It's Contagious

Have you ever been in a situation where somebody yawns and then you can't help but yawn yourself?

KYW medical editor Dr. Brian McDonough reports that there's actually a medical term for it - a pseudo medical term - it's called a contagious yawn and there are studies being done to look at it. 

What they did was they looked at 120 normal children. They found that children develop the ability to yawn contagiously after the age of four.

What they also did was take a look at children with autism spectrum disorders and they found these children had more difficulty catching a yawn. The researchers believe there is something to do with emotional developement that allows people to catch the contagious yawn and they are going to take a look at emotions and their relationship to this phenomenon.