Making eye contact—or, more precisely, not making eye contact—is a big problem for many autistic individuals.
Autistic people of all ages, don’t seem to have a strong instinct for eye contact.
Why does eye contact seem to matter so much to non-autistic people?
Well, for one thing, most humans are hardwired from birth to seek out the eyes of others for important social information.
What is the Purpose of Making Eye Contact ?
Depending on the context, brief intermittent eye contact while interacting with someone:
acknowledges the other person
indicates interest
adds warmth to your words
provides positive feedback
encourages them to continue talking
signals that you are friendly
suggests you’re being polite
shows respect
projects confidence
increases intimacy.
Deciphering a Foreign Language
For most autistic adults, the “social face” and reading social expressions are like a foreign language that we’re only somewhat proficient in.
I can decipher the basic emotions like happiness, sadness, surprise, anger, and confusion. More subtle expressions—those that rely heavily on the use of the eyes and the area around the eyes to understand—are much harder.
Like many people on the spectrum, I’ve learned to use other information to fill in the blanks when it comes to facial expressions.
I often focus on a person’s mouth, which I find conveys emotions more explicitly to me than the eyes. I can gather additional data from tone of voice, especially if I know the person well. Over time, through a variety of interactions, I build up a databank of voice qualities for a person. With enough conversations in the databank, I need only a few words to recognize the happy voice, the fibbing voice, or the “You’re not gonna like this” voice.
The ability to convincingly fake eye contact, while not very helpful for us, puts other people at ease.
If you have difficulty understanding how to convey the right social signals with your eyes, here’s a quick primer:
Sustain eye contact for 4–5 seconds at a time. More than that can indicate that you are trying to intimidate the other person or that you’re romantically interested in them.
Beware of prolonged eye contact. If someone is making prolonged eye contact with you, this may be a signal that the interaction has become more intense than you intended. You can signal disinterest by looking off to the side.
While you’re talking, look to the side or slightly upward when you break eye contact. This indicates thinking. Looking down signals that you’re done talking.
When the other person is talking, break eye contact by shifting your gaze to their mouth rather than looking away. Looking away signals boredom.
If the other person is talking about something emotional and looks away, you should continue to look at them to show that you care.
Make eye contact when you are first introduced to someone. Not doing so is interpreted as disrespectful.
If eye contact feels impossible, try looking at the person’s forehead, just above their eyes. This simulates eye contact.
Flat or Blunted Effect
The technical term for my lack of expression is flat or blunted affect, which means that a person displays reduced verbal or nonverbal emotional expressiveness.
Some signs of blunted affect are a monotonous tone of voice, a lack of facial expressions or a lack of gestures. Often people with blunted affect respond to emotional situations in unexpected ways or have facial expressions that don’t match their feelings.
This can cause others to incorrectly assume they are bored, hostile, mad, sad, depressed, or “spaced out” at inappropriate times. Blunted affect is often unsettling to others and it’s frustrating to me.
Not only do I have trouble verbalizing my emotions but my face keeps wandering off on its own and freelancing.
Here are some ways to tell if you have flat or blunted affect:
Do people ask you why you’re sad when you’re not sad?
Do people ask you why you’re angry when you’re not angry?
Do people say you look bored when you’re interested?
Do people say you look confused when you’re concentrating?
Do people tell you that you’re being insensitive or ignoring them when you’re actually concerned about them?
Do people get mad at you because they think you’re reacting inappropriately in emotional situations?
These are all signs that how you feel and how you appear to feel aren’t matching up, which is a key feature of flat or blunted affect. Especially true if what you’re feeling at the time is contentment.
There are a number of other positive nonverbal cues that you can use as part of an “I’m listening” repertoire to counter blunted affect during one-on-one conversations, including:
intermittent eye contact
leaning closer to the speaker
smiling and nodding
open arm posture (rather than crossed arms)
an occasional light touch on the hand, arm, or shoulder.
At first, intentionally employing body language can feel stilted or fake, but with practice it can be a quick, easy way to put strangers at ease.
Eye Contact Skills Training
When you factor in the level of discomfort that many autistic people feel when making eye contact, it’s easy to see why learning to use and read the eyes in social interaction can seem like such an overwhelming prospect.
The amount of discomfort that people on the spectrum experience when making eye contact ranges from mild to unbearable. The discomfort often varies from situation to situation.
For many autistic adults:
Eye contact can feel too emotionally intense.
Eye contact can lead to physical discomfort.
Making eye contact during a conversation can make it harder to concentrate.
Here are some helpful links:
For non-autistic people, eye contact is a rich and layered language. It’s the conversation within the conversation.
Autistic individuals are largely deaf to this language. It’s no wonder it makes us so uncomfortable when others try to speak to us with their eyes.
Sourced from:
Extracts from Nerdy, Shy, AND Socially Inappropriate A USER GUIDE TO AN ASPERGER LIFE by Cynthia Kim.
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