Question of the Day: “My child doesn’t look at us when he talks, what can we do to help him?”

This is a great question and is a very valuable social skill for all of our kids to learn. Eye contact is a very personal communicative skill that is quite difficult for children with autism spectrum disorders. Because of this, it should be addressed in a very child-centered and child-specific manner. First, let’s think of why eye contact is important to us as adults: It allows the speaker to know that the listener is paying attention and listening to them as well as it gives both the speaker and listener opportunities to gain non-verbal communication about their communication partner. Second, let’s think about what is natural eye contact: natural eye contact is not staring at your social partner nor is it looking at the wall or the ceiling. So overall, it is important to see here is that eye contact is a modality of communication. Our GOAL for a child is to gaze (i.e., look not stare) at their social partner when they are talking. This skill does not happen overnight, it takes a lot of time and effort on both the child and the social/communication partner.

The first step is that we want your child to coordinate an eye gaze to his/her social partner when they use meaningful sounds, words, gestures and/or actions. Children can use their eye gazing skills to communicate greetings, requests, share information and more. For example, if your child wants to play with a certain toy, he can look at you, then look at the toy and last look back at you to communicate “Hey Mom I want that toy!”. How do you increase eye gazing skills? You play developmentally appropriate toys/games/books with your child, you use a variety of transactional supports within these activities (i.e., visuals, songs, routines, etc.) and you capitalize on all your natural language learning experiences (i.e., within your everyday life). The key is, focus on eye gazing within joint attention activities and allow your child time to naturally learn eye contact rather than to force eye contact upon your child.

Once your child has a good handle on eye gazing when using meaningful sounds, words, actions and gestures, then you need to continue doing what you are doing as their language (understanding and expression) increases. This skill will continue to grow as your child grows.

It is important to note that this is a VERY HARD skill! If your child has eye gazing down using 1 to 2 words but it becomes more difficult for them as they grow in their language, just give them time. They are working so hard all day long on DIFFICULT, NEW skills that are all hard alone but are even more harder when they are put together. So give them time. Keep doing what you are doing and when all their skills are consolidated, their eye contact should return. Know that this time is different for all children. For some it could by weeks and for others months. This is why it is great to keep a journal! Keeping a journal will help you track their progress but also their “consolidation time”, the time it takes them to consolidate new skills with their old skills.

What can happen if you force eye contact on a child? They may have an increase in anxiety, avoidance behaviors and dysfunctional echolalia. For example, if every time you saw your boss he said “Look at me!”, “Where are my eyes?”, “Look.” and/or “Eyes”, you would probably avoid him and your anxiety would increase as you approach him as well as he talked to you. The same is true for your child. If your child is pressured to “look” at you, he may attempt to avoid you characterized by saying “no”, walking away from your interactions as well as physically pushing you away. In addition, each time he talks to you or anyone for that matter, he will have such high anxiety about looking into someone’s eyes, that he will repeatedly and increasingly echo “Look at me!”, “Where are my eyes?”, “Look.” and/or “Eyes”.

Another important key point to think about is how important is it for you for your child to learn eye contact now or later. We have seen many children who as “toddlers” eye contact was difficult. They would go through periods of having “great eye contact” and having “poor eye contact”. As their understanding increased and their social communication skills increased, we were able to focus “why” we look at our social partner. We were able to work on “Therapy of Mind” concepts: when we don’t look at a friend then they don’t know that we are talking to them, can you hear what they are saying when they look down and more. Now these children are much like their peers, sometimes they are looking at their social partner and sometimes they are not…….but the key here is that it is natural.

If you focus on eye contact in a natural child-centered way, then you will get the result of natural eye contact; however, it may not be on your time frame……but your child’s time frame instead. Give them the supports they need and they will succeed.

KidSpeak, LLC
Amanda and Laura
www.kidspeakdallas.com