Autism and Difficulties with Eye Contact

So much emphasis and pressure can be placed on an autistic person to look another person in the eye during the course of an interaction. But is the observer or the one who is demanding such attention perceiving, acknowledging and understanding the intense emotions and stress that such a requirement can create for the autistic individual?

There is no doubt that much valuable information regarding the emotions and intentions of the co-communicator can usually be ascertained by observing their overall facial expressions in conjunction with the ‘feeling’ the eyes project. We can ‘see’ the anger, happiness or perhaps sadness immediately emanating from and collaborating with their respective body language. One could also say that the face has it’s own kind of expressive and visual language, which when considered together with the verbal information/message being conveyed, the hand and body gestures, intonation of the voice and the environment of the conversation, we can determine from this eclectic mix of information whether we stay and join with the other in a reciprocal interactive moment or resort to a fight or flight mechanism.

An autistic individual who is finding difficulty in maintaining eye contact with another person may be experiencing cognitive challenges regarding the processing requirements of incorporating and mentally coordinating the information of the message/conversation being conveyed to them. Observing and reading the body/facial language is an additional task which can disrupt the flow of enjoyable and fluent communication. It can be a bit like being tossed around in an emotional and psychological cyclone, where getting one’s feet firmly ‘planted on the ground’ and regaining one’s mental and emotional balance is a major challenge.

Other personal elements which may affect an autistic person, as they find difficulties in maintaining or achieving sustained or momentary eye contact, can be a lowered self esteem/confidence, feelings of insecurity, ill health, dislike or fear of the person or the environment they are associated with at the given moment in time. Additionally, the effective learning of many life and educational skills can be dramatically compromised if the autistic person is experiencing such responses and conditions.

Another example of an obscure sensorial affecting element could be that the autistic person is still cognitively processing or focused on a negative or positive experience encountered 5 minutes ago; 2 hours ago; yesterday or even last week. This is where knowing the autistic person’s present or past daily experience of life assists in recognising when are good times to try and engage them in a conversation, a learning opportunity or social interaction and where eye contact may be an easier task to accomplish and reciprocal interaction may be more freely enjoyed.

So where does one begin to assist a person with autism benefit from learning these extra visual and social cues provided by increased eye contact?

Gaining the autistic person’s trust of you and your intentions in communicating with them is vital. Autistic children, teens and adults can have an innate 6^th sense of perceiving your genuineness, authenticity and respect for their being. If some autistic persons cannot feel a kind of soulful connectedness and level of trust and safety with the other person, they can shut off, repel their verbal or social advances or avoid them altogether. This can particularly be the case when and if they know you are approaching them and/or if their past experience with your presence has upset them.

Additionally, and autistic person can have an innate sense of whether another person can relate to and understand them by the way the non autistic person behaves physically, verbally and emotionally towards them.

If the interaction is conducted in a confronting manner, the communicator may be greeted with indifference, fear, rejection, behaviours and responses from the autistic person, akin to having been physically challenged or emotionally inflamed.

Young autistic children, especially via the nature of their natural immaturity and as yet to be refined social skills, can be what this writer has termed, ‘Natural Responders’. Part of responding naturally, regarding the abovementioned behavioural and emotional displays, can be an avoidance of eye contact.

To be truly respectful of the dignity and personhood of an autistic person, a reduction or elimination of the demands or expectation of eye contact can encourage the potential for increased eye contact during future mutual encounters. In doing so we can ease the stress an autistic person feels in regards to this perceived challenge. Eye contact is not always imperative for one to be reassured that the autistic person has understood, is listening to and benefiting from interaction with you.

Eye contact is not ‘everything’ in the world of communication. It is only part a reciprocal communication equation. Interpersonal interaction and exchange of information and social behaviours can be very successful when one respects how another person prefers to communicate.