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Deficiencies of Eye Contact and Faceto-Face Interactions in Social Relations Among Children with Autism

Summary/Abstract: Ability to read information from human face is compelling for social communication as it enables to understand emotions experienced by other persons, their intentions and needs, what in turn can allow to predict their behaviour, hence it is one of the first stages of developing knowledge on other people. As the research and observations prove, from very early stage of growth the infants realise that a human face is an object of crucial meaning. While entering face-to-face interaction and establishing eye contact they learn convictions of mental and social lives of others. Problems with social communication of children with autism, particularly in terms of eye contact and looking at the partner of an interaction, allow to distinguish children with autism from their peers with other developmental disorders. Children with autism observe people less, and if they do, they do not concentrate on their faces. Moreover, they are not interested in what others express while establishing eye contact, hence not reading their facial expression nor recognising emotions noticeable from face. On top of that, they do not react, or react with delay to the stimuli, avoiding direct eye contact. Therefore, they are unable to read the intention of the direction or expression of the eye contact as a tip useful in interpreting others’ behaviour, and since children with autism do not understand the meaning of information contained within facial expression and eye contact, their range of social experiences during conversation is significantly limited. It profoundly affects their social communication with other people, particularly as far as initiating and maintaining interactions are concerned.

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