My oldest son, who has yet to determine his blogging name, and I played around with this meme and had a great time making light of something that doesn’t have to be that big of a deal. As you know, many people with autism, if not all, struggle to make direct eye contact. So we neurotypical, “normal” folks try to train them how to do it and go to great lengths to explain why it is so important.
It is important when you’re initially meeting someone. After all, they may think you’re a shifty character if you don’t look at them directly. 🙂 Or they might wonder why you’re not paying attention, when really you are. But we’ve found that once people understand your situation, the eye contact thing isn’t that big of a deal.
My son has been trained since he was three to work on eye contact. He does it almost naturally now. But when he needs to really concentrate, it’s just fine if he looks away. In the overall big picture, is it really that important? Each person has to decide. But we think it’s kind of funny to push the issue.
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