Are you demanding eye contact?

In Western society we perceive eye contact to be an important part of communication. However across different cultures eye contact is perceived differently.
Do we need to question our western neuro-typical ideas around insisting on eye contact ?

Within education we have been taught that it is important to gain a child’s attention prior to giving an instruction. To accomplish this we have come to the conclusion that we need the child to “look at me”. It is often assumed that those who do not conform by “giving eye contact/ maintaining eye gaze” cannot be paying attention. This often leads to targets being set around a child making eye contact .

Many are under the impression that “good looking” is directly related to “good listening”. However we all listen without looking throughout the day…

talking on the phone
listening to the radio/ Alexa
listening to podcasts
listening to audiobooks
listening whilst doing another task

And we often do this whilst on the move…
Stillness is also not a requirement for listening. Many people need to move to meet their sensory needs so that they can stay well regulated.

When we communicate there is so much more to this skill than meets the eye.
Teaching someone to “look” can be detrimental in achieving the actual skill we require.

When what we are often actually asking for is Visual Referencing which is so much more than the discrete skill of giving eye contact/ looking.

Visual Referencing requires us to use our sight to gain information about

your environment
your communication partner

For example:

Environment

check where toilets are
check where you can get food
If it is safe
are there visual supports (universal symbols such as toilet sign)
what is everyone else doing

Communication Partner

who you can talk to/ ask (do they look approachable/ friendly)
do I know anyone
are they interested in what I am talking about
do they understand what I am talking about
Is the conversation relevant/ important/ of interest to me

Image: child wearing blue goggles

Eye contact is not always advantageous even in cultures which perceive it to be important.

Across cultures people look away when they are thinking. So a break in eye contact may come not from emotion, but from the need to preserve cognitive resources.

Research has shown that complex verbal tasks appear to be more difficult for people trying to maintain eye contact with another person.
“Eye contact can deplete your mental bandwidth”

In conclusion:

if we put less emphasis on eye contact we can enable deeper thinking during a given conversation.
using more eye contact might give better social feedback between conversational partners
looking at the face/ lips may help us hear what is being said
autistic people often find eye contact painful (are we causing harm by demanding eye contact)
in many cultures eye contact is seen as aggressive or intimidating
in many cultures when a person uses eye contact they are perceived as unapproachable, angry, unpleasant (are we considering and adapting to meet others cultural differences)

…. It is time to move beyond eye contact and consider:
What are our purposes for expecting or "requiring" eye contact”?.

Are those purposes best served by the strategies that we employ?

By Sarah Winstanley, SaLT

Communication Lincs Ltd. …….because Speech Therapy Matters