Ming explains why children, especially autistic ones, stop responding to their names: parents use name-calling for their own convenience without giving the child anything rewarding in return. The child learns to ignore it, like a cat that doesn't come when called.
How to get your child, especially for autistic children, to respond to the names. We need to start off with why your child is ignoring you. I've had many accounts of parents coming to me asking me. It seems like when they were younger, they were responding to their names. And slowly as they grew older, they unlearned that and they don't have that ability anymore. What happens is we need to rethink about why you're asking for a child's attention. Why are you calling for that child? What I'm about to tell you is that, for instance, my cat is here. I would call them just to make them look at me and that's it. And I think sometimes this is what parents go through as well. But as children grow older, especially those on the spectrum, the consequence for it is not rewarding at all. So for the child, it's not that rewarding. For us, it's very self serving. That's why slowly they learn that, oh, I can ignore this. There's nothing cool, there's nothing that mom is showing me.
