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?
Much obliged to both Trogluddite and Marjorie195 for their insight on this, and Electra too. Trogluddite has brilliantly explained what I was trying to say in my questioning way, and added a lot more.
It helps me a great deal as I am often wondering if the way I see things is at all relevant to the experience of others on the spectrum. So the affirmation is gratefully received.
The tragedy is - is anyone listening out there? By that I mean the decision makers on how autism is supported.
We hardly even see moderators these days, except when they retract posts while they deliberate whether they are appropriate, without bothering to explain their actions to us.
Are the psychologists, psychiatrists and other health workers listening to what we say?
Sadly NAS will keep pedalling the diagnostic triad with its misleading impression of life on the spectrum no matter what we try to tell NAS about how we want to be represented - (the best they can muster is a survey mostly of parents and professionals as to whether we want to be called aspies or auties!).