What has come to be known as the “name test” is an assessment researchers at the University of California, Davis devised to screen for early indicators ofautismin babies. It is a simple test that involves saying a child’s name and seeing if they respond.
While the researchers concluded that the name test is quite reliable in indicating developmental issues indicative of autism, some media coverage of the 2007 study wrongly insinuated that the test coulddiagnoseautism. Many people still wonder if that is true.
Here’s what the “name test” autism experiment really looked at and what its findings mean.
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The Study
In 2007, researchers at theUC Davis M.I.N.D. Institutedid an experiment with young infants. It was part of a larger and ongoing research project on autism.
The infants were put into two groups:
All of the infants were between the ages of six and 12 months. The researchers followed up with some of the infants until they were 24 months old.
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What The Researchers Did
For the experiment, the researchers stood behind the babies while they were playing and called their names.
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What the Study Showed
During the follow-up, the researchers counted how many of the infants had been diagnosed with autism.
They also looked at how many times it had taken for each child to respond to their name during the experiment.
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What the Researchers Said
The researchers concluded that if a child who is 12 months old is not responding to their name, it could be a sign that they have adevelopmental delayor condition—including autism.
However, the researchers didnotconclude that the name test alone could be used to diagnose any of these conditions.
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Media Coverage
However, the way that many media outlets wrote about the study may have confused readers and contributed to the panic over the name test.
Headlines
Headlines give readers a sense of what an article will be about, but they don’t tell the full story.
When the name test study was covered, some of the headlines outlets used might have set readers up for confusion.
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Missing Key Points
Beyond the headlines, some articles that covered the study presented the information in a way that didn’t put some of the most important findings front and center.
For example:
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Leaving Out Limitations
A lot of the media coverage left some of the most important points about the research for last—or didn’t cover them at all.
In the actual study text, the researchers made it clear that “failing” the name test did not mean a child was autistic. They also did not intend for the name test to be a single way to diagnose autism.
A child who repeatedly does not respond to their name might be autistic, but they could also have other developmental conditions. For example, they mightnot be able to hear.
The articles also didn’t point out the limitations of the study. For example, the experiment was only done with a very small number of babies from one part of the country.
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Continued Research
The name test experiment was just one part of a broader autism research project at UC Davis that’s still going on today.
In 2017, the researchers did another name test experiment. The findings were similar to those from the study a decade before. However, the researchers again emphasized that the name test alone is not enough to diagnose autism.
One of the main researchers,Sally Ozonoff, continues to research autism in 2024. Since the name test study, Ozonoff’s research on autism has also included:
Thefield of autism researchalso goes well beyond the UC Davis studies. Researchers around the world are looking at possiblecauses and risk factors for autism. They’re also trying to find better ways to diagnose autism.
That said, one of the most important areas of autism research does not necessarily get the most attention—we still have a lot to learn about how to support autistic children andadults.
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6 Sources
Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
Nadig AS, Ozonoff S, Young GS, Rozga A, Sigman M, Rogers SJ.A prospective study of response to name in infants at risk for autism.Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. 2007;161(4):378. doi:10.1001/archpedi.161.4.378
Palomo R, Thompson M, Colombi C, et al.A case study of childhood disintegrative disorder using systematic analysis of family home movies.J Autism Dev Disord. 2008;38(10):1853-1858. doi:10.1007/s10803-008-0579-1
Miller M, Iosif AM, Hill M, et al.Response to name in infants developing autism spectrum disorder: a prospective study.J Pediatr. 2017;183:141-146.e1. doi:10.1016/j.jpeds.2016.12.071
Miller M, Sun S, Iosif AM, et al.Repetitive behavior with objects in infants developing autism predicts diagnosis and later social behavior as early as 9 months.J Abnorm Psychol. 2021;130(6):665-675. doi:10.1037/abn0000692
Licinio J, Wong M-L.Advances in autism research, 2021: continuing to decipher the secrets of autism.Molecular Psychiatry. 2021;26(5):1426-1428. doi:10.1038/s41380-021-01168-0
Conine DE, Vollmer TR, Bolívar HA.Response to name in children with autism: Treatment, generalization, and maintenance.J Appl Behav Anal. 2020;53(2):744-766. doi:10.1002/jaba.635
Nijhof AD, Dhar M, Goris J, Brass M, Wiersema JR.Atypical neural responding to hearing one’s own name in adults with ASD.J Abnorm Psychol. 2018;127(1):129-138. doi:10.1037/abn0000329
Schwartz S, Wang L, Shinn-Cunningham BG, Tager-Flusberg H.Neural Evidence for Speech Processing Deficits During a Cocktail Party Scenario in Minimally and Low Verbal Adolescents and Young Adults with Autism.Autism Res. 2020;13(11):1828-1842. doi:10.1002/aur.2356
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