The human experience is rooted in communication. Every day, we rely on our ability to listen and respond to one another’s verbal cues. This ability to listen and respond is called listener respond or LR in the world of autism therapy. For children with autism spectrum disorder language skills like listener responding may develop slowly or need the help of listener responding ABA therapy. Children with listener responding challenges can have trouble following directions, joining conversations, and ultimately feeling socially connected to the world around them. Poor LR skills may lead children to self-isolation, non-responsiveness, or self-harm. Luckily there are a wealth of tools and support available to help parents foster their child’s listening responding skills at home.
Online ABA therapy from the aba|tools app provides diverse analysis and ABA training to help children build receptive language, receptive identification, and listener responding skills from the comfort of their phone or tablet. Learn more about aba|tools by clicking here.
How to Practice Listener Responding At Home
Listener responding involves a child’s receptive language and receptive identification skills. Receptive language is a child’s ability to understand words. Receptive identification refers to a child’s ability to identify specific items or objects. Both of these skills are necessary for daily life and are affected by a child’s level of listener responding. At home, try to expose your child to a variety of people, experiences, and foods. Before, during, and after new and familiar experiences, talk about them with your child and other family members. Model the types of communication skills that you want your child to use. There is no need to be embarrassed if your child’s listener responding skills are delayed. Many parents struggle with the same concerns. Here are a few ideas for practicing listener responding skills with your child:
- Talk through daily routines.
- Discuss your own feelings with your child.
- Make eye contact with your child when you say good morning to them.
Practicing LR skills at home is an easy way to strengthen communication pathways, build parent-child bonds, and increase the effectiveness of your child’s therapy and education. These are some easy ways to build LR patterns that rely on receptive identification and receptive language.
The Importance of Listener Responding
Early in life, the ability to listen and respond accordingly helps children build foundational life skills. By learning to follow directions, children learn to identify safety concerns and develop functional skills like good hygiene and healthy cooking. They also begin to understand how systems like schools and banks work. Through strong listener responding skills, children build relationships and often achieve great levels of independence in adulthood with minimal anxiety.
It’s important to build the foundation of a child’s receptive language and identification skills at home. Practicing listener responding skills with your child doesn’t need to feel like special training or therapy. By using games, play, and awareness of testing your child’s responses in daily activities you can have fun, build language skills, and strengthen your relationship.
Register for aba|tools for More Information
Practice and early intervention are key components to increasing a child’s listener responding skills. Daily practice and in-home tools can help parents relieve stress and monitor their child’s progress. The aba|tools app provides parents, teachers, and therapists additional support with applied behavioral analysis tools to meet a child’s language skills and help them reach their next language development milestone.
Pro aba|tools subscribers can invite team members and create customized programs for standardized and individual programming. This helps BCAs, BCBAs, BCABAs, SLPs, teachers, and RBTs stay on the same page. Our library of digital autism flashcards uses clinician-developed tools to assess and strengthen a child’s listener response, receptive language, and receptive identification skills. To begin applied behavioral analysis training from your phone or tablet, register with aba|tools today.
