Eye contact and the MCHAT

[Arhumuk]

Hi for those familiar with the MCHAT ive used the guidelines by Diana L. Robins, Ph.D the MCHAT R/F. mchatscreen.com/mchat-rf/. She is responsible for developing and refining the MCHAT

According to the guidelines eye contact passes if your child looks at you for at least two activities listed, or if only for one activity as long as they look at you for a least 5 times in the entire day every day. I'm not expert but does that not strike you as a bit low for a pass for eye contact? Please look at the link above to access the guidelines it Q14 im referring to.

I think you are slightly missing the point of the question - eye contact is not really about quantity but purpose, i.e. a child might stare at your eyes all day long and be classified as having poor eye contact, while another child could be making brief glimpses at you and be classified as having excellent eye contact. Eye contact is only good if it has communicative intent behind it. A child staring at your eyes for no reason is poor eye contact, a child glimpsing at you because the door bell has just rang and he is cautious (so showing social referencing) would be excellent. Other examples could be you holding a toy and talking about it, if a child just stares at your eyes it would be classified as poor eye contact, while a child looking at the toy and every so often (even just once) moving his eye gaze between the toy and you would be excellent eye contact (this is an example of the 3-point gaze).

@AladdinMum I understand what you're saying how ever the guidelines/flowchart make no mention of this point.

So if my son and I are playing a game or he is doing an activity and tries to get my attention for praise sick as clapping. Or the example you mentioned earlier and this is done at least 5 times in the day its a pass or considered good eye contact?

yes, seeking praise with eye contact is very positive. Yes, multiple times a day (certainly five times would be enough) of him making eye contact for communicative purpose like seeking praise, social referencing, 3-point-gaze, pointing to share interests, etc would be classified as excellent eye contact.

The idea of the MCHAT is to be as widespread as possible, and hence it's guidelines tend to be written for generalists, so health visitors, GPS, etc, those not qualified to diagnose disorders like autism. Measuring eye contact based on it's communicative intent can be tricky, specially in short appointment, and hence a counting method on counting how many times a child looks at you is better than nothing - of course if this count is zero then there is a problem. In diagnostic environments like when applying the ADOS, for the purpose of a possible autism diagnosis, the number of times or amount of time a child makes eye contact for is of no relevance, only why they are making the eye contact (if at all).

Thanks @AladdinMum. I would say that he does meet that criteria of eye contact and social referencing at least 5 times a day however with regards to pointing coordinated with eye contact as I have said before he has done it but not often certainly not every day. He does points to requests things every day and very often. He also points things of interests like ducks and planes but occasionally coordinates with eyes not nearly enough as he should do.

It sounds like he is doing great! :) Studies and large experiments have shown that pointing paired with eye contact is very infrequent in normally developing children, one look-back every five times they point would be high, once every 10 times would be very normal.