Goal: Respond to Name

Children with significant social delays, such as those with autism, often don’t respond to their name when called.  This makes it difficult for adults to get their attention or call them away from what they’re doing.  It also makes it difficult for them to participate in social interactions with peers as they may not be aware that someone else is talking to them.  Keep in mind though, that just because a child is not responding to his name, it doesn’t necessarily mean he has autism.  There are many symptoms of autism that must be present before that diagnosis can be made.  Children without autism can also have difficulty with this, especially if they have significant communication delays or cognitive delays.  These steps will help you increase a child’s ability to respond to his name.

Sample Goal:

 Client will spontaneously respond to his name in the natural environment by looking in the direction of the speaker on 80% of observed opportunities.

Download the No-Prep Therapy Kit:

We have a start-to-finish therapy kit that will give you everything you need to practice this skill in therapy and send home homework.  Click the packet below to open it.  Then, print it out and place it in the child’s notebook or binder.

Therapy Phases:

Now comes the fun part!  Here’s where we break this larger skill down into manageable, bite-size pieces.  Here’s how to break this skill down for therapy:
  1. Respond in Isolated Setting: Client will respond to his name being spoken in the quiet, speech therapy room by looking in the direction of the speaker.
  2. Respond in a Structured Setting: Client will respond to his name being spoken in a structured environment with some distractions by looking in the direction of the speaker.
  3. Respond in an Unstructured Setting: Client will spontaneously respond to his name in the natural environment by looking in the direction of the speaker.

Video Overview:

Watch this video overview of how to treat this skill:

The first thing we must do is teach the child to respond to his name when there are very few distractions.  For this you will need to go to an area with few distractions for the child.  A quiet speech therapy room with very few toys or distractions visible can be great for this.

Sit down with the child in the isolated environment.  Make sure you have something to reward the child with, such as a favorite toy, favorite food, or a hug and a tickle if the child likes that.  Wait until the child is looking away from you and say his name.  If he looks at you, reward him with whatever you’ve chosen.  If he doesn’t look at you, say his name again louder and make some sort of commotion like waving or tapping the table.  Keep doing this until he looks over at you.  Reward him with what you’ve chosen.  Each time you reward him, make sure you tell him what you’re rewarding him for.  Say “you heard your name, good looking!”.  Keep doing this and make sure you try just saying his name first and then only resort to waving or tapping if he doesn’t respond.

Keep doing this until the child will look at you when you say his name about 80% of the time in this isolated setting (few distractions).  At that point, you will be ready to move on to the next step.  Keep in mind that shorter, more frequent sessions work best to work on this skill as he may quickly tire of looking at you every time he hears his name.

Now that the child can respond to his name with no distractions around, we want to increase the amount of distractions slightly and see how he does.

The next time you are ready to work on this skill, sit down with the child in a location that has more distractions than the last one.  If you use your therapy room again, find a few more distractions/toys to put out around the child.  Or keep the door open so it’s a bit more noisy.  You can also use the classroom environment but make sure it’s not free play or a highly unstructured time.  The goal here is to gradually increase the level of distraction as the child continues to practice responding to his name.

Do the same activity from the last step where you say his name and reward him if he looks at you.  If he doesn’t look at you, say his name again louder and make some sort of commotion that will catch his attention.  Then, reward him when he does look at you.  This may be harder for him now that there are more distractions.  Make sure that you give him a moment to play between each time you try this.  You want to make sure that he is focused on something else when you call his name so that he is actually practicing bringing himself out of what he’s doing instead of simply continuing to look at you once his focus is already on you.

Keep doing this until the child will look at you when you say his name about 80% of the time.  By the time you’re ready to move on, you shouldn’t need to wave and cause a commotion to catch the child’s attention.  He should be able to respond to just his name.

If the child is not able to make progress in this environment, go back to slightly fewer distractions and make sure that the motivator or reinforcer is really something he enjoys.

Once the child can respond to you when he’s sitting down to work on it, we want to increase his ability to respond to his name at any time.

Wait until the child is busy doing something, such as playing with a toy or looking at a book.  It’s best to do this in the natural environment, like the classroom or home, but you can also start in your therapy room during “free time”. 

Stand relatively close to the child and say his name.  Pause for a moment to see if he looks at you.  If he does, go ahead and reward him just like you did in the last steps.  Make sure you tell him “good looking” so he knows why he’s being rewarded.  If he doesn’t look at you, keep getting louder and more obnoxious until he does look at you.  Go ahead and reward him for looking. 

Keep doing this until you are able to back off of how loud and obnoxious you make it.  Eventually we want him to respond to just his name without needing you to catch his attention first.  Keep in mind that we’re not expecting perfection and even children without language problems don’t respond to their names every time it is called.  As the child gets better at this, start calling his name from farther and farther away.  Eventually, the child should be able to respond even if you say his name from another room.  You will need to increase your volume though for this one.

Keep doing this in a variety of settings and with a variety of people until the child is responding to his name most of the time.  Keep in mind that even children who have no difficulty with social skills sometimes don’t respond to their own name, especially if they are very into whatever they are doing, so don’t expect perfection from this child either.

Training Videos:

Need some extra help on treating this skill?  Check out these related training videos:

Resources, Tools, and Training for Speech-Language Professionals

*** The SLP Solution is for informational and educational purposes only and does not provide medical or psychological advice.  We provide general resources but cannot tell you exactly what should be done for a specific client.  Every client is different and your clinical judgement should be used when making decisions about specific individuals.

 

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