Published on 12, July, 2020
I've been here before a couple of times, but keep coming across this idea that somehow eye contact is just something people on the spectrum failed to learn and can somehow be conditioned to resolve.
One of the problems is how do you know when eye contact isn't happening. So many people on the spectrum resolve having the deficiency pointed out to them over and over by looking at another part of the face. I uselessly and pointlessly look at mouths - and am told I appear to have good eye contact!
How do you tell if someone isn't directly making eye contact? I suggest it is quite hard to verify.
Also what is eye contact? I ask this particularly because some people on the spectrum feel they do have good eye contact. But if it isn't coming naturally how do they determine what is good eye contact?
My understanding is that making eye contact is signalling to others that you relate to them, or respect them, or obey them. It is read as a sign of loyalty or aquiescence by the recipient. So people who don't make good eye contact are seen as hostile, deceitful or deviant.
But aside from that, it isn't the eye contact that's important surely? It's the attention to other people's faces to understand how facial expressions qualify the spoken word, or reveal a person's true intentions. (Also it is about what facial expressions the person on the spectrum conveys for others to read, which may be ambiguous or not easily read if the face is often averted).
The point about eye contact/facial expression recognition is that people on the spectrum miss out on social cues, and are much more literal in the interpretation of spoken languge because they don't pick up on the qualifications conveyed by facial expression.
Therefore they do poorly at social interfacing, and lack social referencing (the feed back non autistic people get from social engagement).
Having stated the underlying difficulties, I don't think it is correctable. You can learn something about the meanings of facial expressions (hence all those social stories pictures), but it is no way as efficient as doing it instinctively. And what the scientists forget is that people on the spectrum are not only not reading it properly they are not conveying non-verbal information correctly.
So it does alarm me when I see yet again some 'professional' talking about lack of eye contact as if it is something to be cured.
Isn't it time the basics of autism (rather than just the triad of impairments) were properly understood?
An aspect of my eye contact experience particularly concerns me. I can manage to play a role without being so obviously affected by it. But when this ends and informal socialisation takes over, it feels like I've already left the room, and am looking in through a window.
Workwise I've often had to play host, facilitator, presenter, educator, which I manage to do well. I seem able to engage, put people at their ease, get people talking and discussing.
I still have trouble if there's a lot of competing noise, other people talking or background music, mainly because I tire more easily in these situations, and I have trouble hearing what people are saying.
Also I don't think I'm making eye contact, or reading faces at all. It is an act I've become familiar with and expert at. I've learned how to say the right things. So why the big difference in informal socialisation?
Shyness has often been suggested. But I'm hardly a "shrinking violet", potentially too forward and pushy, which I have to reign in. And just to do the formal stuff needs a lot of boldness. So it is quite bizarre what happens when I'm no longer 'performing' and operating in an informal social environment.
It is a big handicap because to back the formal skills you have to be good at the social mingling and meeting. You have to join the right social circles and formal groups to get on in life. But I cannot, and if I try I make a most awful mess of things. And the world seems to judge more on social skills than ability.
As soon as things revert to informal, I'm suddenly remote. I often just leave.