One of the common symptoms of autism is having a poor or no eye contact . Many parents, teachers and therapies having struggles of teaching a child to have an eye contact. Eye contact is a non verbal communication which is very essential because it is most use in social interaction but for an individual with autism, making eye contact is very challenging.
For some children with autism, making eye contact is painful and stressful to them, so try not to force them to have eye contact instead look for alternative ways that your child is interested to communicate and paying attention to them. Teach your child to approach someone by appropriate comments such as yes or ok.
Here are few practical tips to improve eye contact with someone who have autism:
- Position your self in his eye level to encourage him to look at your eyes
- Put the object he requested by holding the object right on the bridge of your nose between your eyes to force your child to have eye contact
- Ask your child to look at you before giving something he wants.
- You can use visual aids to encourage your child to look at your eyes. You can try to put colored stickers placed between your eye brows
- Always look the eyes of your child while talking to him
- Praise your child every time he looks into your eyes