Step 2.4 Get the toddler's attention
Parents and practitioners should establish the toddler’s attention before providing cues, prompts, questions, instructions, and/or choices (see Prompting Strategies). Strategies for gaining attention include: saying the toddler’s name, tapping on their shoulder, making an enthusiastic sound or phrase, giving a quick tickle, making eye contact, and/or arranging the environment to support shared control (see Shared Control). Strategies for gaining a toddler’s attention should also be varied over time.
Individualization: Orienting cues and nonverbal toddlers
Some toddlers who are nonverbal may have difficulty orienting and attending to the relevant cues in the learning interaction, such as, a verbal model of a word. In this case, effective and individualized strategies for gaining child attention/orienting should be tried (Koegel, Shirotova, & Koegel, 2009).
Using individualized orienting cues just prior to providing the verbal model prompt could improve the beginning learner’s response to the verbal model prompt, that is, imitation of the verbal model.
EXAMPLE
A three-year-old nonverbal toddler who had difficulty developing first words, oriented to and imitated the verbal model immediately after being asked to give a high-five.
High-fives were found to consistently produce an orienting response from the three-year-old. The researchers thought that the high-five functioned to orient the child to the relevant information: the adult’s verbal model of the word.