Re: Curing Bad Eye Contact

[Guest guest]

Given that his eye contact is good with Mom and fleeting with others, it

sounds like he is able to maintain eye contact when comfortable. I'd work on

his comfort level with people in general rather than forcing eye contact and

make it as rewarding as possible to look people in the eyes. The more he

wants to be with people, the more motivated he'll be to do things that are

socially acceptable and the better able he'll be to copy things he sees other

people do naturally. Early on, we chose not to force the eye contact thing

but rather to really work on comfort level with people and saw eye contact

blossom to being mostly normal now. You can train an autistic person to look

you in the eye, but then they will often look right through you, rather than

truly engage. Instead, make people really rewarding to be with and interact

with and the eye contact will follow.

Gaylen

[Guest guest]

Hi ,

Thanks for the info. on butter.

Regarding eye contact. Our little guy makes great contact, but that wasn't

always the case. As soon as he had been identified as autistic we started

working on it. Get used to saying " look at me " and when he does it say " good

looking " . We have a swing in the basement mounted into a door frame and we

would face him and give him a big push and then stop the swing mid air and

say " look at me " and wait for him to make any kind of move (a wiggle or jerk

of head etc) that indicated he wanted another push, and we would give him

another push. After a few days of doing it this way, request " look at me " ,

wait for him to glance at you, even fleetingly. After a while you don't need

to say " look at me " , you hold him midswing and wait for eye contact and then

release when you get it,you can still say " good looking " . This can work with

any game that he enjoys and wants more of. We would also do this with

snacks, when he wants a treat, hold it at your eye level and say " look at

me " . He will look at the treat which is next to your eye, ultimately you

move the treat away but he will look in your eyes.

Hope something here helps,

Curing Bad Eye Contact

> Hello All --

>

> Our son (22 months) has improved dramatically since we started the

> diet 4 months ago, and Valtrex 1 month ago. He is doing MUCH better

> in the areas of communication, physical coordination, energy, affect,

> etc. In short, he is definitely on his way toward reentering our

> world.

>

> His eye contact, however, is still very poor with everyone except

> Mom. (It is good with Mom, but by no means excellent.) He'll make

> fleeting eye contact with someone if they're doing something he

> likes, but he will not at most other times. Even when we place his

> chin in our hand and force him to face us, he typically tries hard to

> avert his eyes.

>

> Dr. Goldberg mentioned to us that he thinks eye contact is a problem

> in many recovering kids because they got used to the world not

> expecting their attention when they were ill. Unlike Dr. Goldberg,

> we did not consider this a behavioral issue (we viewed it more as a

> physiological symptom of ) until recently. We're starting to see

> it is a behavioral issue now that he is starting to make it clear

> that he does understand us.

>

> I'm sure eye contact will improve on its own over time as his

> communication skills improve, but we'd really like to expedite the

> process and avoid doing anything that allows this lack of

> responsiveness to become more of a " habit " than it already is. Does

> anyone have any thoughts on how to do so?

>

>

>

> Responsibility for the content of this message lies strictly with

> the original author, and is not necessarily endorsed by or the

> opinion of the Research Institute.

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

,

I just wanted to comment that we had the same experience somewhere between

starting Nizoral and Celexa. I remember telling Dr. G one day that I felt

that it was the first time my son looked at me and really " saw " me. I do

believe the antifungal had something to do with it, because we are trying to

change antifungals now... (switched from Nizoral to Diflucan, my son didn't

do as well, so Dr. G had us stop all antifungals for this past week until

our phone conference tomorrow night). My son's eye contact seems to have

deteriorated in the last week... we are back to his not seeming to see me

again.

I read somewhere that some kids with autism have better peripheral vision

than central, so they are actually seeing you better when they look at you

out of the corner of their eye. I don't know if it is true, but I think

about it a lot.

We really did not try to do anything about our son's eye contact

therapy-wise (like one parent mentioned here a few days ago, we work on one

thing at a time and that wasn't the one that we chose), so I know it was the

meds that helped.

Caroline

> On 11/18/02 9:55 AM, " " <thecolemans4@...> wrote:

> It took time for my son to get better about the eye

> contact and for it to become natural. In fact, I

> didn't even realize what " natural " was until the

> Diflucan. That's the first time that I saw my child's

> soul in his eyes.

>

> Good luck. It will come.

>

[Guest guest]

We also did alot of what detailed in the early days with my little guy.

Funny thing, after about a year of that, he started praising people when

they looked at him. We knew we had overdone it a bit when we were out at a

store and he started saying " good looking " and " love those eyes " to anyone

who looked at him .

Gaylen

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 11/18/02 11:19:15 AM Central Standard Time,

sfglover@... writes:

> I read somewhere that some kids with autism have better peripheral vision

> than central, so they are actually seeing you better when they look at you

> out of the corner of their eye.

It is true that a lot of autistic and special needs kids in general have

hyperperipheral vision. Some also have blind spots (sometimes intermentint

blind spots) so if you require them to look directly at you or at something

they're trying to do, they can make their eyes do that but don't necessarily

see what you want them to. The kids that tend to shake things or finger

flick/hand flap are often hyperperipheral.

Without first identifying potential visual problems and working on them,

sometimes forcing a child to look directly at something can actually be

counterproductive. I've worked with a few kids who absolutely learned

better, particularly fine motor tasks, when allowed to look away while

learning a task. Obviously, we worked on developing central vision so they

eventually began using their central vision correctly but if we had forced

them to act like they were looking, it would have taken much longer to teach

the task. My son was one of these kids. It took a full year of hard work

developing central vision before he was able to concentrate on writing and

other fine motor tasks while looking directly at them.

Also, the mention of the anti-yeast drugs helping reminds me of the first

week I was on diflucan years ago. Strangely, I had the most difficult time

making eye contact that week and I also had this great need to rock. It

really helped me understand why yeast can have such a negative effect on the

kids.

Gaylen

[Guest guest]

I think Gaylen hit the nail on the head. Give it some time and don't

force it. The meds will help and as social skills improve the eye

contact will follow. Terri

> Hello All --

>

> Our son (22 months) has improved dramatically since we started the

> diet 4 months ago, and Valtrex 1 month ago. He is doing MUCH

better

> in the areas of communication, physical coordination, energy,

affect,

> etc. In short, he is definitely on his way toward reentering our

> world.

>

> His eye contact, however, is still very poor with everyone except

> Mom. (It is good with Mom, but by no means excellent.) He'll make

> fleeting eye contact with someone if they're doing something he

> likes, but he will not at most other times. Even when we place his

> chin in our hand and force him to face us, he typically tries hard

to

> avert his eyes.

>

> Dr. Goldberg mentioned to us that he thinks eye contact is a

problem

> in many recovering kids because they got used to the world not

> expecting their attention when they were ill. Unlike Dr. Goldberg,

> we did not consider this a behavioral issue (we viewed it more as a

> physiological symptom of ) until recently. We're starting to

see

> it is a behavioral issue now that he is starting to make it clear

> that he does understand us.

>

> I'm sure eye contact will improve on its own over time as his

> communication skills improve, but we'd really like to expedite the

> process and avoid doing anything that allows this lack of

> responsiveness to become more of a " habit " than it already is.

Does

> anyone have any thoughts on how to do so?

[Guest guest]

There is a behavioral program for autistic and Asperger's people called

Relational Development Intervention (RDI). I heard the man who developed RDI,

Steve Gutstein, speak recently. He said a number of times during his lecture

that telling our kids, " Look at me " is like telling a dyslexic person to read

" Moby Dick. "

He said they don't know why they're looking and it makes no sense to them.

We are going to start RDI shortly, so I can't comment yet on its effectiveness.

But it makes sense. For more info, the website is:

www.connectionscenter.com

There is a book you can buy that explains it in detail.

My 5 yr. old son has relatedness (thank goodness) but definitely doesn't have

appropriate social skills. I figured even if he recovers in the next year or

so, his development is so delayed his social skills will remain inappropriate.

This program teaches kids to relate to others just for the reward of the

relationship.

My son's eye contact is good at home, but one of the things I'm hoping to see

from RDI is improved eye contact universally.

It is true that a lot of autistic and special needs kids in general have

hyperperipheral vision. Some also have blind spots (sometimes intermentint

blind spots) so if you require them to look directly at you or at something

they're trying to do, they can make their eyes do that but don't necessarily

see what you want them to.

...

Without first identifying potential visual problems and working on them,

sometimes forcing a child to look directly at something can actually be

counterproductive. I've worked with a few kids who absolutely learned

better, particularly fine motor tasks, when allowed to look away while

learning a task. Obviously, we worked on developing central vision so they

eventually began using their central vision correctly but if we had forced

them to act like they were looking, it would have taken much longer to teach

the task.

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 11/19/02 11:53:11 AM Central Standard Time,

susanwald@... writes:

> There is a behavioral program for autistic and Asperger's people called

> Relational Development Intervention (RDI). I heard the man who developed

> RDI, Steve Gutstein, speak recently.

That program is getting a lot of buzz around here with many families adding

it to their ABA programs. It does seem to have quite a bit to offer but I

found it a bit too regimented for the kids I've worked with. I did find it

very refreshing to see Dr. Gutstein working in a much more respectful manner

than he used to. When we first started down this road over seven years ago,

he was really into adversives, yelling in the kids' faces and doing certain

" techniques " that were really abusive. He has obviously lightened up through

the years and chosen a different path though you can still see a bit of the

old ways in his curriculum books. However, the folks I know who have had

their children in his social programs more recently have all been very happy

with the results and feel he was very respectful and helpful to their

children.

Gaylen

[Guest guest]

Your point on eye contact being cultural is a really good one. I recall when

I attended Son-Rise advanced training that there were several families there

from other countries that were having quite a bit of difficulty getting their

volunteers to work on eye contact. I recall specifically those from Japan,

Singapore and Africa. Son-Rise is really big on encouraging eye contact so

it made for an interesting discussion .

Gaylen