How to design a socially motivating environment to connect with your children
When my eldest son’s eye condition hadn’t resolved by 6 months & his motor development was slow my Occupational Therapy brain began to worry. As a Mum I had this feeling like he wasn’t always ‘getting it’. What I was sensing was his lack of motivation to respond and initiate social interactions. This is the beginnings of a skill called Joint Attention which is typically delayed in children with Autism. Typically developing babies develop this skill from 6–18 months age. Joint Attention refers to when two people are sharing thoughts or interest about an object or event. It’s a higher level skill that involves communication without words, such as the sharing of eye contact, smiles & gestures. The video below is of my 2 year old & 6 month old.
There’s an empty biscuit packet (object). My youngest is continually initiating and responding to social & environmental cues. He looks between the packet, his brother & me. He’s reading my facial cues, looking at my eyes, smiling & laughing. He understands its a funny situation. His brother who’s empty biscuit packet is about to be stolen, responds to me once and doesn’t initiate any social interaction, he’s highly focused on the packet. He’s quite rightly annoyed, but if he was more socially motivated he’d look to me more for cues. He’d be able to tell they are fighting over an empty packet & that’s a bit funny.
Research shows children with greater joint attention behaviour show more sophisticated levels of language. Joint Attention is one of the core deficits in Autism. With a bit of organisation at home you can create an environment that helps your child’s self-initiation of social interactions & motivation to respond, getting them on the way to being more socially aware.
The first change I made after attending a talk on Early Start Denver Model therapy was to reorganise our home & the boys toys. I realised I was missing so many opportunities to teach natural social behaviour. All I needed to do was a bit of environmental sabotage to create more opportunities to give Iggy reason to initiate social interaction.

I started by creating a small space close to our kitchen living area that had some open shelving and a small table & chair. Then I got some clear containers with lids and ziplock bags. Once a small amount of Iggy’s toys were organised and visible but inaccessible he then had reason to initiate a social interaction with us. He would seek us out for help to access the item he wanted. Try rotating a small amount of toys regularly for variation & interest.
When kids are learning to play having an excess of items available can be overwhelming & distracting. Try limiting the amount of materials and involving your children in packing away when finished, this provides structure to your time together & opportunity to practice packing away skills. For example, in one clear container only have enough track to make a short line, a few trains and a whistle. You can separate these items even further with ziplock bags inside the tub. This will create even more opportunities for your child to initiate social interactions during play. Another super motivating time to use the clear container & ziplock bag trick is lunchtime or morning tea. Use a clear box to place lunch and various snacks in ziplock bags. Your child will be motivated to initiate a social interaction with you for help for access to their food. By slowing down your social interactions and being sensitive and responsive to your child you will increase their social and communication behaviour. Organising your home with your child’s motivation in mind provides opportunity for them to initiate interactions. This transfers some of the teaching responsibility back onto your child and you can take advantage of natural opportunities. If your child is initiating when social interactions happen this encourages you to keep persisting & engaging. It can feel very discouraging to constantly be initiating attempts to engage a child who avoids social interactions after a short period.

These natural child led learning opportunities hold a lot of power! Think how much more powerful it is when you are learning because you’re interested & motivated rather than being directed by someone. You can see how motivated Iggy is in the video above to initiate interaction and respond to Sarah his therapist. Notice how she waits & is responsive to his communicative cues. Early Start Denver Model therapy is child led for this reason, we want a motivated learner! ESDM therapy uses principals from Pivotal Response Training to target children’s motivation to respond so children are motivated to play and engage with the therapist during sessions.
Fostering social motivation in home environment & your relationships (through strategies mentioned in my previous post) is incredibly powerful as this increases your child’s liking & wanting of social reward. This will lead to more natural learning opportunities at home in the same way typically developing children learn. So go on, get organising!!
The following references might be of interest to you..
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2521872/
