Child/Baby not Responding to Name:

Many parents worry when their baby or toddler is not responding to his name.  A child may be ignoring you when you call his name for a variety of reasons.  Sometimes, it is just because the child isn’t tuned in to what’s going on around them.  Sometimes, it is because they aren’t developing social skills as we would expect.  Either way, we can work with a child/baby to help them learn to respond to their 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.

However, not all children who struggle with this have 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.

Checking Hearing for Children and Babies who Aren’t Responding to their Names:

The first thing you will want to do with a baby, toddler, or child who isn’t responding to his name, is to check his hearing.  Many times, hearing loss can be missed in young children and can be the primary reason that a child is not responding.  Have the child’s hearing checked before moving on with any of these steps.

Responding to Name Therapy Toolkit

Responding to Name Therapy Toolkit

Therapy Plan and Kit ~ Available in The Hub

How to Help a Child/Baby Not Responding to Their Name:

A speech-language pathologist can help a child improve their social communication skills, including responding to their name.  If you are concerned about your child’s social development, speak with your child’s doctor about seeing a speech-language pathologist in your area.  In the meantime, caregivers and speech-language pathologists can follow these steps to help a child, baby, or toddler respond to his/her name.  You may also want to check out this resource on helping a child respond to voices.

1. Respond to Name in Isolated Setting

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. This may be at the kitchen table or in a room that doesn’t have many toys or fun things going on.  If you are in a therapy space, cover up the toys and games with sheets draped over the shelving.

Sit down with the child in this 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 your child likes that. Wait until the child is looking away from you and then 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.  Work on this a few times throughout the day for a few minutes each time.

2. Respond to Name in a Structured Setting

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. Go into a room where there are more toys or in the living room where there is a TV. 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.  Keep in mind, most children will struggle to bring their attention away from something that they are super interested in.  That’s to be expected!  So you don’t have to go for perfection.

3. Respond to Name in an Unstructured Setting

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. 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.

Additional Resources for a Child/Baby who is Not Responding to his/her Name:

We have a ton of great resources on helping build communication skills in children.  Check out our most popular resources for working with children or babies who are not responding to their names:

Responding to Name Therapy Toolkit

Responding to Name Therapy Toolkit

Therapy Plans and Homework Pages ~ Available in The Hub

Course for Non-Speaking Children

Non-Speaking Children Course

Evaluation and Treatment for Non-Speaking Children

Free Therapy Materials for Teaching Early Communication:

Check out the freebies that we have inside our Free Therapy Material Library!  Many of them are perfect for babies and toddlers who are struggling to communicate with those around them.

Initiating Interactions Social Story

How to Initiate Interactions with Peers (Social Story)

Social Skill Groups Planning Forms and Samples

Calming Children: Self Calming Strategies

Self-Calming Visual Aids

Carrie Clark, Speech-Language Pathologist

About the Author: Carrie Clark, MA CCC-SLP

Hi, I’m Carrie! I’m a speech-language pathologist from Columbia, Missouri, USA. I’ve worked with children and teenagers of all ages in schools, preschools, and even my own private practice. I love digging through the research on speech and language topics and breaking it down into step-by-step plans for my followers.

Fun Fact: I’m trying really hard to be a gardener.  I’ve been attempting to grow my own food for years now with varying levels of success.  I’ve successfully grown oddly-shaped pumpkins, tiny strawberries, and a few tomatoes.  I’ve unintentionally killed a lemon tree and a turmeric plant, though the turmeric plant managed to miraculously come back to life a few months later.  I’d say I’m well on my way!

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