Eye contact

[Marvel101]

DS age 5 has high functioning autism

His eye contact is very poor

I have asked him to look at me when talking - and explained why it is important but it hasn't improved. I even did a star chart working towards rewards if it improved but I found it too draining as he was asking for stars every 2 minutes if he looked at me - or else I was having to constantly remind him.

Neither the psychologist nor the OT could recommend anything else I could do.

Do I just have to accept it will always be poor - or when he gets older might he have a greater understanding and improve it himself?

Try saying "Good looking" when he does look at you, we say and sign it with our non verbal children in early years! We habe had great success with this method very recently with a little teeny tiny with virtually no eye contact whonis now looking and smiling when she hears/sees us say it.

Good luck

Dont expect him to hold it though because take it from someone who knows it actually almost hurts!

Praise him even for a quick glance, catch him doing "Good looking"

I think eye contact is a red herring, tbh. I get the best out of DS1 when we're looking at something together and talking about it.

Eye contact is very threatening and painful. There was a point when I usually thought "oh shit" when DS1 made eye contact at your DS's age because he only ever did it as a pre-cursor to an attack or act of sabotage.

He makes eye contact much ore readily, now, though still finds it uncomfortable. His instinct is to start ticking if I attempt to hold his gaze for too long, so only insist on it when I need to explain something that he is not focusing on at all well - and in that situation, I often need to get him hooked, then turn his attention onto a particular thing.

I tend to look at people's mouths, when I'm talking to them, as my auditory discrimination isn't very good.

I don't do eye contact either. I tend to look at the persons mouth and also keep looking away from them.

I ask my ds to face the person he is speaking to. I have never mentioned eye contact to him. I think it would be too difficult for him or he would end up looking really strange and unnatural. He is 6 now and seems to manage ok, usually facing the person he is speaking to. When he was younger he would have his back to people that were speaking to him.

I've been working on eye contact and body language with ds, purely to make him look more confident.

I tell him to play the 'what colour are someone's eyes' game.