Reasons Eye Contact Can Be Hard For Children With Autism

Whilst not every child or person with autism struggles to make eye contact, many do not find it easy. In this blog, we will explore the potential reasons eye contact can be hard for children with autism and things that you can do to help them.

1. It’s not important to them - For some children, making or maintaining eye contact simply isn’t important to them. They simply prefer to communicate in a different way.

2. Anxiety - Some children may feel anxious or shy and eye contact can exacerbate this feeling, so they avoid making eye contact.

3. The Dorsal Parietal Cortex - A part of their brain, called the dorsal parietal cortex, shows less activity in people with autism when they make eye contact, than a neurotypical person, and this impacts on their eye contact and how they interact with others.

4. Sensory stimulation - Lots of children with autism have sensory issues and eye contact can cause sensory overload for them. This results in them avoiding eye contact because of the stimulation that they get from it.

5. It feels painful - Some adults with autism have said that eye contact is in fact painful for them and can cause nausea, headaches and dizziness.

6. It’s confusing - Your child might find eye contact distracting and confusing and
somewhat an invasive experience.

It’s important that you do not force your child to make eye contact, and if trying to encourage them to do so, you should always go at your child’s own pace. Whilst good eye contact is important for social interaction and picking up social cues, it is not paramount.

  

                     Things you can do to help your child with eye contact

Speak to your child’s Occupational Therapist and Speech and Language Therapist who will be able to suggest some ideas that might help your child to feel more comfortable. Certain games might be helpful in encouraging eye contact. Some examples are, peek-a-boo, blowing bubbles, making funny faces and ball games that involve passing a ball to one another. Another suggestion is using finger puppets that they can look at and gradually bringing these up closer to your face.
Eye contact may be very difficult for your child and this might not change. This is okay. Forcing them to do so may result in stress, anxiety and sensory overload. We’re all different, and what works for one person, might not work for another.