Children on the autism spectrum can find the long-term goal of stating personal information difficult to master. A child’s ability to correctly state address, name, date of birth, and phone number is an important skill, especially if they are separated from their parent or caregiver and / or become lost. The activities below will help you guide your child towards being able to relay their address, date of birth, phone number, and name. It is important to remember that this requires sufficient practice and repetition, as this is not only teaching your child how to communicate the information, but helping them to memorize the required information as well.

The following strategies may help your child make progress towards mastering the long-term goal of stating personal information:

• CAUTION! It is important to work with your child to help them not only master the long-term goal of stating personal information, but also to help them understand when it is appropriate to provide personal information. For example, it is safe for them to provide personal information to you, the parent, or a doctor, or a police officer, but they should not provide personal information to a stranger online.
• Start with filling in the blanks. For example, say, “Your date of birth is,” and have the child finish the sentence. This is the simplest form of intraverbal conversation and a good place to start facilitating intraverbal communication. Reward your child for correct answers, and phase out the positive reinforcement when the skill has been sufficiently acquired. If the reinforcer for the behavior is a tangible item, such as a small snack or a token for a token board, ensure that it is provided with a great deal of verbal praise. Ideally, you want your child’s positive behaviors to be supported solely by social reinforcement.
• Level up to question and answer. Once your child is comfortable with filling in the blank, begin to format questions, such as, “What is mom’s phone number?” At first, if your child is having difficulty understanding how to answer, you can format it as, “Mom’s phone number is ____. What is your mom’s phone number?” to help. Reward for correct answers! You can repeat this process with address and date of birth. It is okay to pose the question in a different way once your child has become comfortable with answering. This ensures that your child can relay the information regardless of the way it’s asked. For example, instead of asking, “What is your address?” you can ask, “Where do you live?” Begin to phase out the positive reinforcement when the skill has been sufficiently acquired. If the reinforcer for the behavior is a tangible item, such as a small snack or a token for a token board, ensure that it is provided with a great deal of verbal praise. Ideally, you want your child’s positive behaviors to be supported solely by social reinforcement.
• Practice. Be sure to have your child practice answering questions with a variety of individuals in different environments so there isn’t an association between ability to answer a question and a particular person and / or environment. For example, have another individual ask for the phone number or birthday to have your child be comfortable with being asked the question by other individuals. Use positive words of encouragement or other forms of positive reinforcement when they reply to another person when they ask. Phase out the positive reinforcement when your child has become comfortable responding to a new person. If the reinforcer for the behavior is a tangible item, such as a small snack or a token for a token board, ensure that it is provided with a great deal of verbal praise. Ideally, you want your child’s positive behaviors to be supported solely by social reinforcement.
• Additional resources:

Learning how to provide important personal information (massgeneral.org)

6 BEST WAYS TO TEACH PERSONAL INFORMATION (savedbyabell.org)

My Address | Educational Video for Kids | Preschool | Kindergarten | Elementary - YouTube

PHONE NUMBER SONG | Teach Children Your Phone Number | THE CHEEKY HOMEMAKER - YouTube

What's Your Phone Number? (Sing-along) - YouTube

Home-Made Activity to Teach Important Phone Numbers

What's Your Name? (Super Simple Puppets version) | Super Simple Songs - YouTube

In order to help your child master the long-term goal of stating personal information, you can work with your child on the short-term goals of stating address, stating date of birth, stating phone number, and stating name. For the short-term goal of stating address, you can choose a target such as stating full address, stating city, stating street name, stating zip code, or stating the state.

Stating Address

• Step 1: Decide what part of your address you would like your child to learn to state. For example, you can choose the target of stating full address while working on the short-term goal of stating address. Stating the full address would be done when your child has learned the individual parts of your address, such as street, number, city, state, zip code.
• Step 2: An initial / specific discriminative stimulus (SD) should be selected that will cue your child that the task will start. This SD can be a visual SD, such as an image of your house, or a verbal SD (“Our address is…?”).
• Step 3: Collect baseline level data by providing the SD from Step 2 and allowing your child to attempt independently to fill in the blank for the information for which you prompted. The baseline level will vary according to your child and their specific abilities. As an example, you can count how many times in a row your child is able to independently fill in the blank for the information (i.e., full address) you prompted for. Alternatively, you can count how many times within a given time interval (e.g., 5 min, 10 min, 15 min, etc.) your child was able to independently fill in the blank you prompted for. 
• Step 4: To begin the trial to monitor progress towards meeting the target (i.e., the target of stating full address), provide the SD from Step 2 and allow your child to attempt independently. When your child is successful, provide reinforcement. If the reinforcer for the behavior is a tangible item, such as a small snack or a token for a token board, ensure that it is provided with a great deal of verbal praise. Ideally, you want your child’s positive behavior to be supported solely by social reinforcement. If the behavior was not displayed, end the trial and provide the appropriate level of prompting on the following trial. For example, you can show your child the picture of your house and say “Our home address is [your complete home address].”
• Step 5: Collect data on how your child makes progress. For example, count how many times in a row your child can meet the target of stating the full address independently. Alternatively, you can track progress by recording how long it takes your child to meet the target of stating the full address independently. Or, alternatively, you can track progress by counting the number of successful attempts at filling in the blanks of the full address during a session. 
• Step 6: Track how your child makes progress to meet the target of stating full address by comparing with either a number threshold or a percentage threshold (necessary to meet the target). For example, you can record the number of successful attempts at filling in the blanks over a certain number of sessions, and compare that with the number threshold necessary to meet the target. Alternatively, you can record what percentage of times your child can fill in the blanks, and compare that with the percentage threshold necessary to meet the target.

Stating Date of Birth

For the short-term goal of stating date of birth, you can choose a target such as stating date of birth to a familiar person, stating date of birth to a doctor, stating date of birth to relevant community members, stating birth month and day, or stating full date of birth (month, day, and year).

• Step 1: Decide what information related to the date of birth you would like your child to learn to state. For example, you can choose the target of stating birth month and day while working on the short-term goal of stating date of birth.
• Step 2: An initial / specific discriminative stimulus (SD) should be selected that will cue your child that the task will start. This SD can be a visual SD, such as an image of a birthday cake, or a verbal SD (“Your birthday is…?”).
• Step 3: Collect baseline level data by providing the SD from Step 2 and allowing your child to attempt independently to fill in the blank for their birth month and day. The baseline level will vary according to your child and their specific abilities. As an example, you can count how many times in a row your child is able to independently fill in the blank for their birth month and day you prompted for. Alternatively, you can count how many times within a given time interval (e.g., 5 min, 10 min, 15 min, etc.) your child was able to independently fill in the blank you prompted for. 
• Step 4: To begin the trial to monitor progress towards meeting the target (i.e., the target of stating birth month and day), provide the SD from Step 2 and allow your child to attempt independently. When your child is successful, provide reinforcement. If the reinforcer for the behavior is a tangible item, such as a small snack or a token for a token board, ensure that it is provided with a great deal of verbal praise. Ideally, you want your child’s positive behavior to be supported solely by social reinforcement. If the behavior was not displayed, end the trial and provide the appropriate level of prompting on the following trial. For example, you can show your child the image of the birthday cake and say “Your birthday is [your child’s birthday].”
• Step 5: Collect data on how your child makes progress. For example, count how many times in a row your child can meet the target of stating birth month and day independently. Alternatively, you can track progress by recording how long it takes your child to meet the target of stating birth month and day. Or, alternatively, you can track progress by counting the number of successful attempts at filling in the blanks of their birth month and day during a session. 
• Step 6: Track how your child makes progress to meet the target of stating birth month and day by comparing with either a number threshold or a percentage threshold (necessary to meet the target). For example, you can record the number of successful attempts at filling in the blanks over a certain number of sessions, and compare that with the number threshold necessary to meet the target. Alternatively, you can record what percentage of times your child can fill in the blanks, and compare that with the percentage threshold necessary to meet the target.

Stating Phone Number

For the short-term goal of stating phone number, you can choose a target such as stating area code, stating full phone number, stating parent’s phone number, or stating your child’s own phone number.

• Step 1: Decide what information related to a phone number you would like your child to learn to state. For example, you can choose the target of stating parent’s phone number while working on the short-term goal of stating phone number. 
• Step 2: An initial / specific discriminative stimulus (SD) should be selected that will cue your child that the task will start. This SD can be a visual SD, such as the image of the parent on the phone, or a verbal SD (“Mom / dad’s phone number is…?”).
• Step 3: Collect baseline level data by providing the SD from Step 2 and allowing your child to attempt independently to fill in the blank for the phone number for which you prompted. The baseline level will vary according to your child and their specific abilities. As an example, you can count how many times in a row your child is able to independently fill in the blank for the phone number you prompted for. Alternatively, you can count how many times within a given time interval (e.g., 5 min, 10 min, 15 min, etc.) your child was able to independently fill in the blank you prompted for. 
• Step 4: To begin the trial to monitor progress towards meeting the target (i.e., the target of stating parent’s phone number), provide the SD from Step 2 and allow your child to attempt independently. When your child is successful, provide reinforcement. If the reinforcer for the behavior is a tangible item, such as a small snack or a token for a token board, ensure that it is provided with a great deal of verbal praise. Ideally, you want your child’s positive behavior to be supported solely by social reinforcement. If the behavior was not displayed, end the trial and provide the appropriate level of prompting on the following trial. For example, you can show your child the image of the parent on the phone and say “Mom / dad’s phone number is [phone number]”
• Step 5: Collect data on how your child makes progress. For example, count how many times in a row your child can meet the target of stating parent’s phone number independently. Alternatively, you can track progress by recording how long it takes your child to meet the target of stating parent’s phone number independently. Or, alternatively, you can track progress by counting the number of successful attempts at filling in the blanks of a phone number during a session. 
• Step 6: Track how your child makes progress to meet the target of stating parent’s phone number by comparing with either a number threshold or a percentage threshold (necessary to meet the target). For example, you can record the number of successful attempts at filling in the blanks over a certain number of sessions, and compare that with the number threshold necessary to meet the target. Alternatively, you can record what percentage of times your child can fill in the blanks, and compare that with the percentage threshold necessary to meet the target.

Stating Name

For the short-term goal of stating name, you can choose a target such as stating first name, stating last name, or stating full name.

• Step 1: Decide what information related to their name you would like your child to learn to state. For example, you can choose the target of stating first name while working on the short-term goal of stating name.
• Step 2: An initial / specific discriminative stimulus (SD) should be selected that will cue your child that the task will start. This SD can be a visual SD, such as an image of your child, or a verbal SD (“Your first name is…?”).
• Step 3: Collect baseline level data by providing the SD from Step 2 and allowing your child to attempt independently to fill in the blank for their first name. The baseline level will vary according to your child and their specific abilities. As an example, you can count how many times in a row your child is able to independently fill in the blank for their first name as you prompted for. Alternatively, you can count how many times within a given time interval (e.g., 5 min, 10 min, 15 min, etc.) your child was able to independently fill in the blank you prompted for. 
• Step 4: To begin the trial to monitor progress towards meeting the target (i.e., the target of stating first name), provide the SD from Step 2 and allow your child to attempt independently. When your child is successful, provide reinforcement. If the reinforcer for the behavior is a tangible item, such as a small snack or a token for a token board, ensure that it is provided with a great deal of verbal praise. Ideally, you want your child’s positive behavior to be supported solely by social reinforcement. If the behavior was not displayed, end the trial and provide the appropriate level of prompting on the following trial. For example, you can show your child the image of themself and say “Your first name is [your child’s first name].”
• Step 5: Collect data on how your child makes progress. For example, count how many times in a row your child can meet the target of stating first name independently. Alternatively, you can track progress by recording how long it takes your child to meet the target of stating first name. Or, alternatively, you can track progress by counting the number of successful attempts at filling in the blanks of their first name during a session. 
• Step 6: Track how your child makes progress to meet the target of stating first name by comparing with either a number threshold or a percentage threshold (necessary to meet the target). For example, you can record the number of successful attempts at filling in the blanks over a certain number of sessions, and compare that with the number threshold necessary to meet the target. Alternatively, you can record what percentage of times your child can fill in the blanks, and compare that with the percentage threshold necessary to meet the target.