Responding to Name

Posted by Ashley, Special Educator

As we know, based on diagnostic criteria, individuals with autism display marked differences in the areas of socialization and communication [more information].  Differences in these areas are required in order to receive an autism diagnosis.  What this means may vary from child to child.  Differences in these areas may vary drastically in both degree and form.  Remember that every child is a unique individual.  However, although every child is different, there are sometimes specific areas of need that are common to many (not all) of our students.  One of these areas is responding to one's name (i.e. acknowledging when someone has called your name).


Some children with autism or PDD-NOS do not respond to their names in any way.  Some children may not respond (e.g. making eye-contact, looking up, turning toward the speaker, etc.) when called from just a foot away.  This is a primary concern for many parents, as well as for me as an educator.  As you can imagine, responding to one's name is an important life skill, and a skill that most people demonstrate countless times in a single day.  Think of how many times in just one day people call your name expecting you to stop, look at them, and answer!  This is an important skill in many situations and for many reasons.  Despite the importance of this skill, I find that many therapists and caregivers struggle with how to teach it. In fairness, this is a skill that I was once clueless in how to teach as well!  Because the majority of typically-developing children acquire this skill without direct instruction, it can be difficult for us to breakdown a way of directly teaching it.  But, do not fear!  As always, we can use the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) to guide us!

Before I begin, please note that it would be nearly impossible for me to write every potential strategy for teaching a child to respond to his/her name (not to mention that it would be a very long post!).  The information provided here is meant to be a starting point for teaching this skill.  My advice is based on my personal opinions, what I have learned through experience in the classroom, and advice and modeling from other professionals in the field.  But, as always, I do not claim to have all the answers!  If you consistently attempt these strategies for a reasonable amount of time and do not see progress, I suggest that you consult a local special educator or Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) for support.

When beginning to teach a child to respond to his/her name, you can start with two basic steps:

Step 1:  Ensure that when the child does respond to his/her name by looking at the speaker, it is immediately followed with something that the child LOVES!  You want to pair the child's name with good things.  In other words, make sure that each time you call a child's name and he/she looks at you, it is immediately followed by something the child enjoys (e.g. tickles, praise, being picked up, handing over a favorite toy, introducing a preferred activity, etc.)  In the beginning stages, you are going to reinforce eye-contact even if it is prompted (e.g. you gesture to your eyes, say "look at me", or bring the child's hands to your face), then gradually fade out your prompts.  By doing this, you are teaching the child that when he/she hears this particular word (his/her name), and responds by looking at you, something good happens.  This will make the child more likely to respond to his/her name in the future (in ABA, we call this "reinforcing" the behavior).

Step 2:  When a child is first learning to respond to his/her name, do not ever follow his/her name with a demand.  We often do this by mistake, and I am certainly guilty of it as well!  (Even us professionals make plenty of mistakes!)  Let's stop to think for a moment about when we typically call a person's name.  The primary reason for calling a person's name is to get his/her attention, right?  Now let's think about why we want someone's attention.  It is often because we want that person to do something for us, correct?

Here are some examples from my day today:
"Ashley, can you sign this for me?"
"Ashley, what do you think about this?"
"Ashley, can you pass me that pencil?"
"Ashley, can you help me for a second?"

Here are some examples from a typical classroom:
"Johnny, go line up please"
"Sarah, come sit down for circle time"
"Marcus, it's time to clean up"
"Emily, please pass out the pencils"

Here are some examples from a typical household:
"Isaiah, come to dinner"
"Christina, it's homework time"
"Jason, get dressed for school"
"Craig, let's brush your teeth"

Are we seeing the trend here?

I am sure you can think of countless similar examples from your own home or classroom.  I recommend taking a day (or even just an hour) to really pay attention to the way we use people's names.  As you can hopefully see from these examples, it is often our nature to follow someone's name with a demand.  When we are first teaching a child to respond to his/her name, we must be careful to avoid this.  If you call a child's name, he/she responds, and you then place a demand, we may be accidentally be reducing their behavior of responding (in ABA, we call this "punishing" the behavior)!  By following a child's name with a demand, we may actually be teaching that child to STOP responding!  Why respond to your name if you know it's going to be followed by more work?  Make sense?

So, in the early stages of teaching this skill, we must be sure that when a child responds to his/her name, it is always followed by something good, not by a demand.  Make it FUN!  For the record, this is my advice for teaching basically any new skill, especially social skills--always, always, ALWAYS make it fun!  As we are able to fade our prompts and the child shows consistent success with responding, we can then think about including demands again.  It is natural, after all, for one's name to be followed by some type of instruction.  Our goal is always to prepare our children for the real world, so we will eventually begin to use their names more naturally, but I think the first step is to get consistent responding!

I hope this information will offer guidance to other families and professionals out there!  Do not feel discouraged--there are many skills that can be difficult to teach at first, and this happens to be one of them.  Please share your thoughts and experiences on this topic!

Side Note:  The strategies listed here, as well as some other similar ones, may also be useful in increasing eye-contact in general.  We will post more information on eye-contact at a later date!