Why do autistic children often avoid looking into other people's eyes?

Science has long argued that autistic children encounter other people's glances that will make them feel uncomfortable or simply just indifference.

According to Scientific American site, from a recent study, autistic children often forget social interactions but will not actively avoid the glances of others.

These findings support one side of the long-standing debate: Are autistic children tending to not look into the eyes of others because they are bored or see eye contact? comfortable?

"The question of why we have seen long-term reduction in eye contact of autistic children has long been important. How important we understand autism, and how we treat autism," Lead researcher Warren Jones, research director at Marcus Autism Center in Atlanta (Georgia, USA) said.

If children with autism do not like eye contact, treatments may incorporate many ways to alleviate discomfort. But looking at the eyes is simply not important to them, parents and therapists can help them understand the importance of common social interactions.

This work is also meaningful for scientists when studying eye contact should focus on social brain regions instead of brain regions related to fear and anxiety.

Lack of eye contact is one of the early signs of autism.

Lack of eye contact is one of the early signs of autism, and its evaluation is part of autism diagnosis and screening tools. However, researchers have long debated the underlying mechanism.

The "lack of interest" hypothesis is consistent with social motivation theory, arguing that having no interest in information society is the fundamental foundation for autism. On the other hand, reports from people with autism suggest that they feel eye contact is uncomfortable. Human eye movement studies when looking at faces provide support for both these hypotheses.

Indifference in the eyes

New research published on November 18 in the American Journal of Psychiatry is the first solution to this problem in children.

Jones' team demonstrated a series of videos for children to watch, including 38 normal development children, 26 children who were considered autistic, and 22 children with developmental delays in cognitive, linguistic but does not meet the criteria for autism. The babies are 2 years old. Researchers use eye tracking technology to monitor children's eyes as they watch videos.

Initially, the children saw a small blue and white circle appear on the screen when the sound rang to attract their attention. As soon as the child looks at the circle, a video of an actress will appear at this position. The actress will talk to the child in a very attractive way.

In some cases, the position of the circle directs the child's gaze to the actress's eyes. At another time, the circle that led the child to look at other parts of the actress's face or the scenery around her was built by researchers looking like a child's room, full of toys and images. color.

When there are suggestions from the circle looking into the eyes of the actresses, autistic children don't take their eyes off her earlier than the other groups. This finding shows that eye contact does not irritate them.

Teenagers and adults with autism often think that intense eye contact makes them uncomfortable.

Clarity in concept

In the rest of the video, children tend to look into the eyes of actresses when their voices and facial expressions are appealing; sometimes they look elsewhere when she has no expressive feelings.

Children with autism spend less time looking into the eyes of actresses than other children, but their eye contact does not change with the expression on the girl's face.

"This is a very clear and concise story. There is an unfavorable behavior going on. This is really indifference about the look," said Frederick Shic, professor of pediatrics at Washington University in Seattle. said.

Meanwhile, children in the retarded group showed similar eye-contact patterns as normal children.

Scientists now want to have more and more necessary studies to learn about their "lack of interest" model. Moreover, adolescents and adults with autism often think that intense eye contact makes them uncomfortable, so the aversion to eye contact can develop later in life.