Funny thing, that is pretty close to normal behavior, other than the introspective awareness of why. If anything it sounds more towards a hyper-empathic place.
I think it wouldn't read normal to you if you were in our shoes. It feels quite maddening because she absolutely will not look at us in these situations and instead appears focused on a toy she is fiddling with, an edge of a rug, etc. It "feels" like she is not listening. But in fact she is. At this point, we have let it go--but I do feel concerned about how this behavior looks to teachers and other outsiders.
We never ever notice anything unusual about eye contact at other times. When SHE talks to US at times of high emotion, she makes eye contact. This problem only comes out when WE are talking to HER at times of high emotion.
What you say about hyper-emapthic is, in fact, not totally at odds with some new thinking about ASDs, Some say that rather than not "feeling anthing" socially, some people with ASD are just feeling too much, or experiencing feelings of overwhelming social input. If DD is ASD-ish, I would definitely place her in this category. She is highly sensitive and in fact way reads too much into tiny voice modulations, etc.
