Are You Looking at Me?

June 28, 2010 by Lisa Freeman
Posted in•Social Thinking

I was at team meeting last week and one of the therapists brought up the topic of eye contact. We had some different opinions and ideas about this issue. We were all in agreement that eye contact was important but our expectations were different. It got me thinking.

When a therapist/teacher says that a child doesn’t have ‘good eye contact’ what exactly do they mean? When they’re playing a game should they be looking at the game or at the person they’re playing with? How long do they need to maintain eye contact? How often have we said ‘Look at me’ to our children? What exactly are we asking a child to do when we say ‘Look at me.’ Are we asking them to watch what we are doing? Are we asking them to look at our face? Are we asking them to observe what our eyes are looking at to figure out what we are thinking about? 

Eye contact or eye gaze is the basis for shared or joint attention. Shared attention is the beginning of social interaction and perspective taking. Without this skill the child doesn’t develop the awareness that people have thoughts and emotions. They need this ability in order to socialize.

Just because a child isn’t ‘looking’ at the teacher/therapist doesn’t mean they aren’t paying attention. Sometimes sensory issues get in the way and they can’t look and listen at the same time. As I was wandering the web for information about eye contact I came across an interesting article on this topic. Here’s the link: Should We Insist On Eye Contact

 

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