Eye contact

[LizK]

Reading the thread about programming on General Forum and the discussion about eye contact has got me thinking.

 

DS (nearly 4) has variable eye contact, sometimes he'll look at you directly in the eyes, sometimes at your forehead and sometimes not at you at all. He's generally a variable little chap and I expect his eye contact varies with him. We've been trying to encourage him to give eye contact when he talks to people, partly I guess to help him learn non-verbal communication skills and social 'norms' but after reading various comments on the thread am wondering if that is the correct thing to do and whether it will in fact make him more uncomfortable. I don't have a problem helping him learn about the social rules he hasn't inately picked up if it's to his benefit and not causing him upset but am thinking now about how he feels emotionally about making eye contact and whether it is something that should be encouraged or not.

 

One time I do find it useful is if he's been misbehaving and going off on a manic bender when he doesn't want to listen. Going down to his level and making him look directly at me ( like Supernanny I guess though I can't abide her methods in general!) seems to be a more effective way of getting through to him and stopping whatver he's been doing. Saying that I often get him to focus on my nose or forehead so maybe that is better than asking for eye contact

 

Any thoughts or suggestions?

 

Liz x

[Tez]

When A was 5 he was diagnosed with a semantic prgmatic language disorder and was given weekly individual SALT for 18 months. A large part of the therapy was getting him to try and maintain eye contact. This was 9 years ago but I was rereading the reports a few weeks ago when I wrote my Parental Advice for his Statutory Assessment. I was struck by how often the Speech therapist commented on the fact that although he was developing the ability to maintain eye contact it clearly made him feel uncomfortable and always had a forced look about it.

 

I had thought that current thinking was that it was best not to force it but clearly it is another area where opinion is divided.

 

My current view is that if I had my time again I would not have allowed this type of intensive therapy where eye contact was forced at such a young age. However, now that he is older I do think it is important that he is made aware that in certain situations (e.g. a job interview or where someone is trying to establish the truth of a situation) assumptions are made about you based on your ability to maintain appropriate eye contact and that he is given guidance on how to do this appropriately.

Edited October 6, 2005 by Tez

[Zemanski]

my view is never force eye contact - it isn't just uncomfortable, it can, for some, be actively painful

 

if a child makes eye contact it is because they feel comfortable with it at that point.

 

social politeness is usually met if the child looks at ears or mouth - Com finds mouths distracting so he tends to go for ears.

 

some kids find that they can't concentrate o what the person is saying if they are making eye contact - it over-rides other senses - this may be because some autistic people can only process one stream of data at a time so they put the visual on hold for a while. often the visual senses are so acute that they distract from everything else even where they can process more at a time from other senses.

 

if you look at the research thread there's a whole section on eye contact.

 

Zemanski

[oracle]

I am in total agreement with Zemanski about eye contact. My eldest see's a talking face as a plate of wobbling jelly. Once he has this picture in his head no matter what the 'jelly' is saying to him he is no longer listening.

 

Eye contact stands for very little in my book it's the way a child recieves and understands a request or instruction that is important.

 

When my two are melting down I have little chance of them taking in anything that I am trying to say. They simply move past any point of listening and making them look at me would make no difference what so ever.

 

The only way that a child with ASD learns non verbal communication skills is to be taught them. Again in my opinion, (God I am opinionated) they are never going to pick up non-verbal communication from just observing someone who does use and understanding them. It's a part of the ASD wiring that is missing and you have to teach non verbal communication because they will never just pick it up.

 

My eldest has said to me that he wondred for years why his Grandfather would raise his eye brows when he was looking at him. He never once realised that it was because he was trying to warn him that he was doing something that was unacceptable.

 

The younger you begin with the non-verbal minefiled the greater the success I reckon.

 

 

Carole

[Zemanski]

just asked Com if he had ever wondered why people raise their eyebrows or make other facial movements without speaking to you

 

'what, they move their eyebrows do they?'

 

ho hum - lots to teach him there!

 

Zemanski

[LizK]

Thanks all. The thing I like about this forum is that it makes you think about things in a different way

 

The younger you begin with the non-verbal minefiled the greater the success I reckon.

 

Carole, any advice about doing this successfully?

 

Sorry for brief reply, children screaming!

 

Lx

[Ian Jordan]

eye contact problems are common and can a symptom of a number of differnt processing problems - some can be addressed very successfully in seconds, others are probably best left alone. The best decision maker is the child!

However, unless they have the opportunity to try resolution techniques they are not able to make the decision. Exercises can be cruel! Other techniques can work in one second and are pleasant.

[oracle]

We play games with Matthew to try and teach him facial expression and body language. He likes it when we do this in the style of 'Give us a Clue' it makes it fun and is placing the emphasis on fun. He really likes it. When there is only the two of us I use his teddies, but he would kill me for saying that. I make them act grumpy and shrug their shoulders etc. It makes him laugh a great deal but he also takes it in. His Dad has printed some facial expresion cards that he made on the PC and we play snap with them, naming each expression as we put it down. It helps to name each one because it then becomes routine. Matthew also loves the Smilies here He often asks me to make a post using the ones he would like to see. So we spend some time writing post I am never going to send Maybe should of kept that to myslef. But he loves doing this.

 

I also tend to over state an expression or a movement just so that he can see what I want him to see. It does not always work but at 8 I think he does quite good now with non-verbal communication.

 

We tend to use methods that we know that Matthew will respond to and like. So if you look at things that your son likes then try and use them. I can remember also drawing faces on pieces of paper and then sticking them onto Matthew's cars. He liked this to.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Carole

[bid]

I'm a bit anarchic over eye contact...sorry!

 

I think we should leave well alone, or at the most suggest looking at another part of the face.

 

Bid

[lil_me]

We've worked with my son for a short while to get some sort of eye contact, for one main reason, he was a 'boob talker' , if he spoke to anyone male or female he usually at thier chest. Ok not too much of an issue now, but trying to change that later in life I felt would be difficult, so we've worked with getting him to make 'glances' at peoples eyes when talking or wanting their attention, and now he uses it quite frequently, sometimes his eye contact can be fantastic (in comparison to 2 years ago) if he is talking about one of his interests, is seeking feedback or the bad side which is when he's angry he uses it. He's not forced to use it, we just showed him what was prefered and seen if he's taken it on board, which he has. Sometimes you get no eye contact for days, but as a 'learned response' as some like to call it he can use it when he wants to/puts his mind to it.

 

I've done a lot of facial recognition work aswell, he hasn't responded as well to this so far, but never tried to approach body language issues yet.

 

When I started working on eye contact with my son I had no idea about the ASD problems which he was suspected as having. I have since also heard to some people on the spectrum that it can be painful. We I suppose had the advantage of working at things like this without any thoughts on ASD. We seen issues highlighted by school, and other people aswell as things we noticed and adressed them the way we thought best. I am quite pleased in certain areas as I may not have tried these things and had the success with them if I had more knowledge of it then.

Edited October 7, 2005 by lil_me

[Malika]

Hi to all,

 

When my son was 5-6 he would hardly makes eye contact and I use to keep asking him "look at me look at me" then (he was not DX yet) I had the feeling that it would not work because it was somehow negatif, so I invented a game I use to roll on the bed with him in my arm his face against mine and singing song of praise that he was a wonderfull little boy clever and cute then I would sing about something we had done during the day and would say something funny about it (using simple jokes) and make him laugh the whole thing would last around 10 minutes I did it for few month around 3 times a week, now he really makes very good eye contact but if he ever feel unconfortable he won't do it.

 

I am not sure if this helped him or if he just come to it naturally but one thing is sure is if he is too upset he will look away!!! bless him

 

I did lot of games for facial recognition like "mime" kind of things and Thomas the tank engine and used some web for it he is ok now but still has problems when there are more complexe interaction with more than 2 people involved.

 

Malika.

[Tez]

Despite the therapy he had A still finds eye contact difficult and doesn't make it. He met his home tutor today and he sat at the dining room table with her which has a very large mirror on the wall behind it.

 

A positioned himself so that he could look at her in the mirror instead of not looking at her at all and said that it was brilliant. He found it much easier to do and found that there were moments when he gained some insight by being able to see her face.

[Lynden]

Interested in the replies to this one Liz as our SLT is working with Logan on eye contact at the moment. She did say though that it may not be something that he is comfortable with depending on his level of autism so we may do things differently in the future. We're also planning on using PECS after his assessment in December (need to plan it before then) and that requires less eye contact too. Personally I'm of the view that he'll do it if he needs to but dont really feel like I should force it atm. During the exercises today he clearly wanted what she had but didn't get it till he looked at her and I'm not sure thats the right way to go.

 

Lynne xx