Ep. 92 Eye Contact & Autism: Do's & Don'ts
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What is the purpose of this episode and who are the hosts?
What's up everyone and welcome to Making the Shift for Autistic Kids. We're an SLP couple from California with four boys. And we're here every week to bring you neuroaffirming tips, tricks, and tools. Are you ready to make the shift? Let's do this!
Hello, hello, welcome to making the shift. A friend of mine recently told me that you should always ask what's new and good. So what is new and good with you right now, what is new and good with me is that we did welcome our fifth baby boy. He came on New Year's Eve, so if he wakes up from his nap, he might be making an appearance tonight. on our show at T V D. But for now, any little baby goat noises you hear is him. talking to himself in his sleep. So everything is great here. Really excited to be continuing with the show. And I sit in bed, I will tell you, ninety nine percent of the day with the baby, so it's just nice to do. A little bit of work, a little bit of continuing our normal here and there.
So tonight I'm really excited to bring you a topic that is very much needed. We have talked about this little bits in the show on the past. We've never had a show all for this one topic and this topic is eye contact. So we're gonna be talking all about What goals for eye contact? might look like And why we should not write them. So we're gonna talk about why it can be harmful to write them. So if you are a therapist working with parents and you're trying to explain To them, why we should stay away from, you know, targeting eye contact and working on eye contact as a goal. This could be a great source for you. resource for you and be able to get information and relay that to parents or you could send parents directly to this episode.
Okay, so we're gonna talk about what goals might look like. Maybe you've written them in the past.
Why are traditional eye‑contact goals (e.g., three‑second stare) problematic for autistic children?
I know I have. We're gonna talk about what is the harm. We're gonna talk about different things that we need to consider moving forward. We're gonna talk about is this ever okay? What can we do instead? What is the alternative? What is the solution? What should our therapy actually focus on? And we're gonna talk about all of that as well. Okay, so I have in the past written this goal in two different ways. Tell me in the chat if you have two. Okay, one is that a child will maintain eye contact for a certain number of seconds in a conversation. So in the past I might have written a goal like the child will maintain eye contact for three seconds. During whatever conversational exchange, okay? So one might be the goal is the length of the eye contact and this brings back
The harrowing memories. Of Actually practicing this skill with kids where we would look at each other and we would count one, one thousand, two, one thousand, three, one thousand so painful. Okay, so length of time we look at someone might have been a goal that you have written in the flat past like I have. And another goal might be frequency, like how often they make eye contact. I specifically remember This little girl I worked with and I had a goal for her that was She will make eye contact three times, or it was like five times in a three-minute period, or something like that. Okay, so Um Why is this a problem? For a lot of autistic people. Not all, of course, but for many, this is not their natural way to communicate.
It is just a learned way to communicate. And what you will hear, I have had so many autistic adult friends adult friends tell me
How does autistic joint attention differ from neurotypical joint attention?
I just learned too that fill in the blank. I just learned to look right above their eye. I just learned to look at their nose. I just learned to look at their eyebrow. Like learning, teaching themselves I have to do this. So I'm just gonna choose a random place to look so that it looks like I'm looking them in the eye because it's actually too uncomfortable to look them directly in the eye. Okay, so why do kids not Why do autistic kids, why are they less likely to use eye contact in general? It could be the physically uncomfortable for them to make eye contact. It could be that it is too much sensory overload. I've had a lot of autistic people tell me the eyes for some reason are just so much sensory input and it's just really hard to be able to take all of that in at once.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the purpose of this episode and who are the hosts?
0:08–2:11
2
Why are traditional eye‑contact goals (e.g., three‑second stare) problematic for autistic children?
2:11–4:15
3
How does autistic joint attention differ from neurotypical joint attention?
4:15–6:23
4
When, if ever, is it appropriate to teach eye‑contact for safety or functional reasons?
6:23–9:13
5
What alternative strategies can show attention without forcing eye contact?
9:13–12:30
6
How can therapists shift goals toward self‑advocacy instead of eye‑contact compliance?
12:30–15:10
7
What free week‑long neurodiversity‑affirming training is being offered?
15:10–17:36
8
What are the key take‑aways and next steps for listeners?
17:36–19:58
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from The NeuroAffirm Podcast
Ep. 125 How to Run Successful Social Groups
Ep. 124 Building Rapport Isn’t Enough...How Therapists Become Part of the Intervention
Ep. 123 Not Seeing Progress in Speech Therapy? Start Here.
Ep. 122 Screen Time Considerations for Autistic Kids
Ep. 121 The Biggest Sensory Mistakes SLPs Make
Ep. 120 Why Anxiety is So Common in Autism (And What Actually Helps)