Shared Moments
Something you can do with your child tonight.
Ten minutes. No materials, nothing to buy, nothing to set up. You can start during whatever you were already doing — bath, snack, blocks on the floor, the walk to the car.
Three things this is not, said plainly before you spend any time on it.
It is not a treatment, and it does not claim to change your child's outcome. We know a great deal about how to change what caregivers do. We know much less than the field usually admits about whether that changes a child's language or development. Saying otherwise to a frightened parent would be the most profitable thing we could do, so the line is drawn here, in writing.
It is not a test or a screen. It scores nothing and cannot tell you whether your child is autistic.
It does not teach your child to seem less autistic. Nothing here trains a child to perform being normal. All of it aims at shared enjoyment and communication, which belong to your child.
What you are aiming for
You and your child paying attention to the same thing, together — and both of you knowing it.
Not eye contact. Not pointing when asked. Not answering questions. Just shared attention on something, with you genuinely in it.
We chose this one on purpose. It is the thing that research has most reliably been able to change, and it is safe when you do it imperfectly — which matters more than elegance. A parent doing this slightly wrong still ends up sitting near their child, enjoying something with them. The first thing a worried family is handed should fail gently.
Tonight · ten to fifteen minutes
The five moves
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Find what they're already interested in.
Don't choose it for them. Whatever has their attention right now is your material — a tap running, a wheel spinning, lining things up.
If it looks repetitive or odd to you, it still counts. It's often the best material you've, because the interest is already real.
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Get close, where they can see you without looking for you.
Down on the floor, at their level, beside or across from the thing they're attending to — not between them and it. You're joining their activity, not starting a new one.
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Say what's happening. One short sentence, about their thing.
“Round and round.” · “Water's cold.” · “Blue one on top.”
Simpler than feels right. If your child uses no words, use one or two. If they use single words, use two or three.
Describe — don't ask. No “what's that?”, no “can you say wheel?”, no “look at me.” A question is a demand, and demands end shared moments.
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Wait. Longer than is comfortable — count five, slowly.
This is the move everyone skips, and it's the one that works. Silence is where your child gets a turn.
Most adults wait about one second. Five will feel enormous. Five is roughly right.
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Treat anything they do as their turn — and answer it.
A glance, a sound, a hand moving toward you, leaning in, pushing the toy your way, going still, a word.
Respond as though they meant it, because responding is what teaches them that it worked. They say “car”, you say “fast car.” They push the toy over, you take a turn and pass it back.
Then go back to move 3. That's the whole loop.
If nothing happens
Nothing happening is normal, and it's not failure. Stay. Keep commenting now and then.
Your presence — close, unbothered, not asking for anything — is the part with the actual evidence behind it. Five to ten minutes of that's a complete, successful session even if your child never once looks at you.
How much to help
The ladder — and it's about you, not your child.
Start at the lowest rung that gets the two of you sharing something. Move up only if you've been at a rung for several days with nothing. Come back down as soon as you can.
| Rung | What you do |
|---|---|
| 1 | Sit close. Say nothing. Just be present in their activity. |
| 2 | Add a short comment about what they're doing. Wait five. |
| 3 | Do a small thing that extends their activity without changing it — add a block to their line, hand them the next one. |
| 4 | Take a turn in a routine they know, then pause, with the expectation showing on your face, and wait. |
| 5 | Offer a choice between two things they like, held up, and wait. |
Never
There's no rung where you move your child's head, hands, or face. If a technique requires you to make your child's body do something, it's not part of this. Never block, turn, or hold a child's head to get them to look at you.
What counts
What it looks like when your child is doing it.
Your child continuing what they were doing, with you clearly part of it. Any of these:
- staying in the activity while you're close and involved, rather than moving away or shutting down
- accepting the thing you added, instead of undoing it
- taking a turn — pushing something back, waiting for you to go
- any sound, movement or word that arrives after your comment and before you speak again
- checking in with you — a glance toward your face or body, however brief
Eye contact isn't on that list, and it's not the goal.
If it happens, enjoy it and say nothing about it. If it never happens, your child can still be completely engaged with you. Many autistic people listen and understand better when they're not also looking at a face.
When autistic adults were asked which goals they actually supported, increasing eye contact came near the bottom — endorsed by about one in five, while quality of life and reducing self-injury were supported by more than nine in ten. We follow the people who have lived it.
What doesn't count, and why we say so
Following an instruction. Repeating a word after you. Answering a question correctly. These may be fine things — they're not this thing. A skill your child performs on demand but never uses to reach you hasn't been learned in the way that matters here.
When it doesn't seem to be working
Weeks with no visible change is the normal shape of this.
It's not evidence you're doing it wrong, and it's not evidence your child can't. Two common patterns worth checking:
- You're asking, not describing. Record thirty seconds on your phone and count your question marks. Most parents are surprised. Aim for zero.
- You're waiting about a second. Count it out. Five.
Do less, not more
Stop and change something if your child consistently leaves when you join, becomes distressed, or the sessions have started to feel like a test either of you can fail. That's a signal to do less. Drop to rung 1 for a week.
The honest evidence
Read this before you believe anyone, including us.
We're giving this away, so nothing here needs to be oversold.
- What's well established
- Approaches like this one reliably change what caregivers do, measured by observers who didn't know who was in which group. That effect is large and has been replicated. It's why everything above is written as instructions for you.
- What isn't established
- That doing it makes any difference to a child's language, autism characteristics, or day-to-day functioning compared with not doing it. In the best-known trial of this kind, the main result the researchers had committed to in advance came back null. The strictest review of the whole field found that when you limit the analysis to well-controlled trials, very little survives.
- What's genuinely unknown
- Whether approaches like this carry any harms — because the field doesn't look. Only about one in ten intervention studies mentions harms at all.
So the only claim we will make: these are the caregiver behaviours research has most reliably been able to change, and they're associated with better later language. They're not a treatment, and nobody can promise you an outcome.
If you go looking at milestone lists, two things almost nobody is told. They're set at the age at which about three quarters of children would show the behaviour — not an average — so being “behind” one is far less alarming than it sounds. And in the most recent revision, of the milestones whose ages changed, more than two thirds moved to an older age. They're prompts for a conversation with your doctor. They're not a curriculum and not a diagnosis.
Getting a professional
Keep your referral. Keep the appointment.
This is education and support. It's not clinical care and doesn't replace it — and this existing isn't a reason to wait for anything.
Contact your paediatrician or another appropriate professional promptly if:
- your child loses words, gestures or skills they previously had — at any age, this warrants prompt attention
- there are concerns about their hearing
- there's self-injury
- feeding or sleep is significantly affected
- you're struggling and need support yourselves
Reaching out early isn't an overreaction.