Eye contact is an important thing, it shows us how a person is feeling. Many autistic people like myself don't like having eye contact. If I bump into someone on the street I refuse to look up and meet...

Eye contact is an important thing, it shows us how a person is feeling.
Many autistic people like myself don't like having eye contact. If I bump into someone on the street I refuse to look up and meet there eyes, instead, I take a great interest in their shoes.
I would refuse to be the first person to walk into a restaurant and be the one to talk to the waiter, waiting by the door. The same when it came to ordering my food. I'd have to get my mother to order my food for me because I couldn't bare to risk making eye contact.
When I was younger, talking to an adult, felt uncomfortable. I remember brushing my long hair forward as a defense to hide my face.
While I was at my special needs school there was a lad who refused to take off his black hoodie that was always up. It's sad to say that many people who would see him on the street would avoid him because the stereotypical image of a male in a hoodie is bad and must be avoided. But this poor lad only wore this hoodie because like how I used my hair as a defense to hide my face, he used his hoodie.
If your child likes wearing hats or having their hoodies up, I wouldn't be surprised if it was for the same reason.


I have no idea, is the straight answer. Everyone is different (thank goodness) and looking someone in the eye will not come with the snap of the fingers. For me, it's taken years to gradually look in the eyes of someone who I didn't know. Even now I find it hard to keep constant eye contact, especial with the opposite sex. However, I have learned that in a group of friends or family, when meeting someone new I feel more comfortable because if anything happens I know their there to back me up.
When it comes to eye contact, every autistic person is different but I found that when I was pushed into a job (a nerve-racking experience) I slowly learned to engage people because I learned a routine that made me comfortable.

What was is you ask?
 The normal thing that every cashier says.
"is that everything for you?"
"that's..."
"would you like a bag with that"
"I hope you have a nice weekend"

For these few sentences, I always made sure, I wore a smile to send a positive vibe to the customer and hopefully get back a pleasant response that I didn't need to fear or worry about.
It was a gradual development of forcing myself to look at them when I spoke but I'm proud to say, that I can hold it and I have even managed to extend it to a quick polite conversation with them.

To a person without autism, this is as easy as brushing your teeth but for us, it's telling us to run when we can't even walk.

So if like me, you struggle with eye contact or your child does I'd advise little glances at people to start with and then build it up from there.
Baby steps.

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