Autism Eye Contact is one of the strong indicators for diagnosing autism. Autism can be detected early by evaluating the quantity and quality of eye contact, and the outcome of autism treatment can be assessed through the improvement of eye contact. To put it bluntly, children with autism have trouble making eye contact. Occasionally, eye contact occurs, but it is very short and does not last. Some children with autism spectrum disorder sometimes look at their faces during the conversation, but in most cases, they look at the other person’s mouth, not their eyes. It expresses curiosity about vocal organs that make sounds, not social communication.
Why can’t autistic children make eye contact? Is eye contact impossible for children with autism? The answer is that autistic children cannot make eye contact even if they want to. i.e., not able to do it. However, it is also true that if you try properly, you can create enough eye contact.
When ordinary people process visual information, they focus on the central theme and process the rest as peripheral information. In social life, attention is mainly focused on people, surrounding objects are processed lightly to the level of background information, and data is processed through peripheral vision. Information is being processed in the central nervous system so people can concentrate.
However, children with autism cannot discriminate between peripheral and central information. All visually visible data is processed as a major information and pours into the central nervous system. It’s not just the public image; it’s also the detailed visual information… Sometimes when you look at a person, you can understand it if you associate it with every single strand of hair. In this state, a person’s face is only a tiny part of the enormous amount of visual information.
For this reason, no area in the cerebral cortex of children with autism recognizes human faces. Only the realm of discriminating things works. This means that the cortical area that sees objects is activated when you look at a person. Even if you want to make eye contact, the situation is created.
It is not that children with autism are unaware of their parents caring for them. They recognize parentswith love. Unfortunately, they cannot focus on their parents’ eyes and faces. Parents of children with autism should never give up eye contact. The growing child’s brain has strong plasticity, so it is not difficult to make eye contact. Give your child a more enjoyable experience when there is eye contact. If you keep working hard, your child will make eye contact with you and smile one day.
