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DD10 is a...funky child with no diagnosis, but some ASD/ADHD traits. (She's odd in that nothing fits her all that well, but we try to focus on the issues we see and address them as needed.) As she ages, we are noticing more conversational deficits, particularly with adults. (She is socially very popular with peers. This is part why nothing fits.) In particular, she has poor eye contact and does not give the impression that she is an interested listener, even when she is. She also is slow to respond/answer, even when she wants to--conversational timing is off. Again, this is much worse with adults and especially with adults she does not know well. Give and take is poor. She does not monologue (no obsessive interests) and at times she can sort of "light up" and be very interactive, responsive and conversational--I have no idea why this sometimes happens but more often does not. She is much more responsive to us, but still has poor eye contact and is prone to non sequiturs.

I believe some of this is age appropriate, but some of it is definitely an issue for her. I would like tips from others (probably this would be parents of kids who have ASD, ADHD, or perhaps language pragmatics problems?--she might have that a little) on ways to work on this. The eye contact one is an interesting one. I am not sure how much to insist on it. She IS usually listening, even though she appears not to be. But the impression she gives to adults is poor. I should also note that she is NOT shy, even though this makes her sound it. I am not sure why this is so much worse with adults, but I think it's partly that she is not that invested in relationships with them.

She is highly sensitive to being "talked down to," so we must tread carefully. Also, she is extremely anxious about the idea that there is anything "wrong" with who she is or how she conducts herself.

My ds with DCD and expressive language disorder had similar issues with conversational language, especially eye contact. He is slow to respond/answer at times (not always) and that's related to his DCD (DCD and ASD have overlapping traits in this and some other areas). Like your dd, he isn't shy and he can be actively and obviously engaged in some conversations at some times - but if you look closely you can see clues re when he's able to freely converse vs when conversations are going to be more halting and delayed etc.

What helped our ds was Speech Therapy that was directed at conversational skills and specifically worked on things like eye contact etc. In some ways his SLP approached it in a very scientific, almost mathematical way which resonated with ds. Having the instruction come from someone other than a parent who was always saying "look at me!" was helpful too.

Best wishes,

polarbear

I think I didn't know that there was speech therapy that worked on these particular issues. That's good to be aware of. How did you get him diagnosed? I'm not opposed to a diagnosis--it's just that DD has already been screened/tested for a few things and always passes. We end up looking sort of crazy. She's very good at acing tests of all kinds, even when those skills are not great in real life. If she KNOWS it counts, she will tune in, because she is aware of the stakes. But in many situations, it's like...child, are you on Neptune right now? (Yet she has no problems in school--completes assignments on time, hands in all HW, does not lose things...in a school program where many peers are struggling with these tasks.)

Just to make her even harder to spot, DD's verbal IQ is 99th% and she is a fantastic and prolific writer. But something breaks down in certain conversational settings, for sure.

Sometimes it helps not to force them to make actual eye contact. One of mine is uncomfortable with too much of that, so I've suggested looking at some other part of the face (eyebrow, nose, glasses frame), because the majority of people will not be able to tell that you are not actually looking them in the eye, but you won't feel quite as exposed (or whatever it is that bothers them about eye contact).

We talk explicitly about how body language communicates specific messages to your conversational partner; we don't want our body language (including eye contact, fidgeting, open/closed stance) to contradict our words, as that may communicate dishonesty or insincerity. We also discuss the value of conversational fillers as a means to buy time for formulating your response, so that your conversational partner knows that you heard what they said and will respond when you have something to say.

She has explained that if a conversation is intense or emotional, eye contact makes it hard for her to focus on what is being said. She usually needs something to fidget with in these situations, too. I am okay with this for now, as long as I feel she is still attending to me. But in casual conversation, there seems to be something else going on. She is highly visual/artistic/detail-oriented, and gives that as a reason ("I like to look around and notice things"). I don't know if it's really that, which sounds ADHD, or if it's discomfort-- more on the ASD side.

I have definitely talked with her about the messages body language sends. The irony is that if I pose for her, or give her little online social-skills cards/scenarios to look at, she can "read" them and pass them just fine. She can say, "Yeah, if you do that you look like you're listening, and if you do that you looks like you don't care." But if I ASK her, "Do YOU personally care or notice if someone doesn't look at you when you talk?", she's like "Mennh...not unless it's really extreme and I can tell they're not paying attention." She has a surface understanding of what is expected but is not bought in.

Fillers are a good thing to bring up. I don't know if I've talked to her about that. Head nodding--I should talk about that.

Does she have the same issues with eye contact when sitting down? Disparate heights between adults and children can make children uncomfortable and feel inferior when trying to maintain eye contact.

I'll project some of my personal experience, in case my lens rings true for her:
A highly aware visual person can get overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of often contradictory information that comes from another person. Some adults have poor performance control when dealing with kids such that their non-verbals and verbal content are completely out of whack such that looking at them while they speak is a bit disgusting (closest word that comes to mind.)

The delays and such particularly with strange adults may be a very introspective overthinking thing where she is aware of tone of conversation, content, what impression she is creating, norms for behavior as expected by adults. She may need the additional focus to form an appropriate response that conveys the right level of conversation for the audience. If you are also seeing this, there may be a performance component so she is seeking a tone and content that maintains consistency with the social face she presents to you as well as finding a negotiated level.

Other delays can come from trying to be polite and finding the right transition moment and make sure someone isn't just taking a long pause.

Her default level around other kids may be her best practiced social face. The unfettered blurting thoughts and such may mean she is working as close to natural as can be.

Other factors I find with watching someone's face when they are speaking is sometimes I get really distracting feedback delay loops (ever tried listening to your voice on a half second delay through earphones while speaking?) And sometimes it is a distracting detail in their face.

But if a speaker wants my undivided attention, then it's best I not look while they speak.

My personal work-around is to make sure I use very active listening skills like nodding or verbal tiks and asking strong, insightful summative questions.

My DS 15 has similar issues. He is also currently not labeled with anything, but we are looking into expressive language disorders. (There are other problems.) He doesn't really quite fit an ASD diagnosis. Talking with adults he doesn't know well is a struggle. I know that he often listens better if he he doesn't have to be looking straight at you. One great place for conversation is in the car. But I have insisted that not looking at people when they are talking with you is considered IMPOLITE. He insists that looking at another person has nothing to do with if you are listening or not and even insisted on doing his 6th grade science project on the topic. He tried testing to see if the direction you were looking, affected how well you heard a word.

Several things have helped, and maturity seems to be one of them. When my son was in 6th & 7th grade he did a social skills group with a bunch of other boys his age, most of whom where either ASD or ADHD. He did get better for a while, but has been having problems again recently. At this point we are taking him to a pyc. whom deals with gifted kids and are planning on getting him formally tested him this summer.

What Zen wrote!

Yes, some news reporters and tv personalities exhibit this emotional discontinuity as well, which provides a great resource in discussing this concept with kiddos.

Have you noticed, a similar effect can occur when one is in the speaking role of a conversation: looking directly at the conversation partner for too long a time may cause the processing of the visual input to override one's train of thought, limiting speaking ability.

Helpful for both conversation partners!

bluemagic, just wondering if it helps your son understand that in some cases, it may be a necessity to look at someone. I depend a lot on lip-reading in conversations especially face-to-face and I will tell my co-workers to move their hands/cup/whatever is blocking their mouths and look at me especially if their voices are not easy for me to understand. It has nothing to do with whether the other person is listening, but rather allows me to follow what the other person is saying and not have to ask them to repeat themselves as much. When the person's face/mouth is not visible, sometimes I can not even tell whether he has stopped talking or started talking - much less always understand what the person is saying.

That's a great point, notnafnaf, and one DD will be able to understand, as she is very attuned to issues of different ability.


Ummmm...no!


Also not ringing a bell!

Clearly my brain does not work like this! I can relate to sometimes feeling overwhelmed by the intimacy of eye contact, but the part where it makes you lose focus is totally foreign to me. If I am not looking at you, it probably means I am not paying attention. This means I "read" DD's not looking at me as not paying attention. I have learned that it does not have to mean that, but it's an example of a disconnect we face as child and parent. Parenting is tough sometimes!

Definitely, and ironically it is worse when the other person is a really, really attentive listener and the signals are in cadence but inherently out of phase. Faster conch passing helps that. In a group speaking situation, scanning past "that" person can be effective.

I'm a maximum eye contact kind of person, myself, so I've had to learn to release other people from eye contact so this doesn't happen to them.

It's also why you just shouldn't try to engage me in a deep conversation while I am driving. Especially if you are in the car with me, and wish to arrive at your destination intact and on time.

BTW, there are other cultures (some of the North American First Nations come to mind) where full eye contact with a speaker is considered quite rude, especially if there is a status difference between the listener and the speaker. A disproportionate number of Bureau of Indian Affairs students were punished for this back in the day.

Conversations in the car definitely came up when DD and I discussed this! She was like "But YOU CAN'T look at me in the car! We don't have any eye contact in the car!" Like--HA! Set and match, mom! And I thought--huh, we do have good conversations in the car, don't we?

I find the car very good for having those discussions DS doesn't want to have. He doesn't have to look at me in the eye and my attention is distracted. I think he figured I might get less upset or mad. That and there isn't much else to do but talk with mom or look out the window, since he gets terribly car sick. He really reveals more of his innermost feelings during talks in the car. I already have something I want to talk with him about that I was planing on bringing up during the drive to his music lesson this afternoon. Maybe I should re-think this plan to teach him to drive, since I'll miss all that conversation time.

I can think of another very obvious example.

She needs to know how this appears to others-- even if SHE can listen just fine without looking, others will feel slighted or annoyed, and that's why this is worth addressing.

I'd start by watching TV or movies with her and occasionally calling her attention to gaze, especially how people look when they're listening attentively, listening disrespectfully, or not listening.

Oh yes--I've definitely talked with her about how it appears *to others*, the feelings people feel when she uses this body language, and how other people do not feel as she does about this. However, as her parent, I think it is okay for me not to always insist on eye contact in intense conversations. It's a lot to ask of her, it seems. We're working on cueing it in "easy" discussions first. She actually asked me to use a cue word to remind her when talking to other people, so she is somewhat on board with being reminded.

Watching for it in TV is a good idea, although she doesn't watch muhc TV/movies (not of much interest to her).

My D is very similar, and is in college now. She has improved some with age, but I sure wish we had known this might be improved with Speech Therapy.

She also has trouble discerning other people's emotions, and I have wondered if this is because she doesn't/can't look carefully enough at their faces during a conversation. She undertook learning to read emotions better on her own (and learning to express them more like everyone else does) while in middle school by watching YouTube videos. Her own solution, I didn't hear about it until a few years later.

DS7 is the same way except that the poor eye contact mainly shows up when HE is the one talking. He'll be rambling on about something while he's looking around the room. I watched him once during a speech eval and his eye contact became much more normal as the session went on and he felt more comfortable with the speech therapist. So even though he does not appear shy or anxious, I do think there is something like that going on, leading to reduced eye contact until he gets to feel comfortable with someone. But even with me, eye contact is not always great. He might look at me periodically to see if I'm listing but otherwise look around the room while he's talking. I'm not sure what it means either, or how to get the eye contact to improve, but just wanted to say he is the same and has DCD, some characteristics of ASD and ADHD. We do have a social skills group in his IEP and they are working on things like this, as well as in speech therapy in school even though he scores average to above average on speech assessments they are keeping him in speech because of the conversational back and forth--he tends to ramble whether people are interested or not, and he doesn't ask pertinent questions to show interest in other people, for instance he might ask someone "What did you do over the weekend?" and if they answer, he doesn't keep the conversation going, he'll move onto talking about minecraft or something else that interests him. Probably some of it is age-typical for a 7 year old though.

Oh, lack of eye contact shows up when she talks, too. But she's not a rambler, or a monologuer. She does not bore people with topics not of interest to them (she doesn't have obsessive interests--although she's pretty into Harry Potter, but she doesn't talk about it much). If there is an issue, it's more that she doesn't sustain the conversation well--a short, undeveloped answer, then silence. But if I listen to her talking to peers, she sounds fine. She doesn't do quite as well with highly sophisticated peers who are trying to be "cool," but she has no social problems. I think, actually, that she knows how to hang back and be quiet if she is unsure. She is not obtrusive/annoying like some kids with ASD traits.

When we talked about the importance of eyes to understanding emotions, I remembered this test:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/...ind-the-eyes/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

She got a 26, which put her in the average range for an adult. (I got a 31 or something like that.) I don't know if this is due to high IQ or if she actually is fine at reading expressions.

Do they bore her or make her feel uncomfortable? DS8 sometimes has the close talker from Seinfeld problem, he is in your face if he wants you to know something. And he used to prefer adults for conversation but now he's good with both but if it's an uncomfortable topic - like he has done something wrong - I have to do the "look at me when I am talking to you". Maybe she is just hyper sensitive to adults so that it's all criticism or constraining, so she looks away. What was her reaction to the emotion in harry potter - especially in the movies, was she able to handle it, does it make sense to her. I had to press DS to discuss it because the emotions were so big, but once I did it was clear he got it just didn't want to because it hurt and made him cry, so would rather focus on magic. But did get it. But had trouble with the level of evil, he was used to cartoon evil, having same trouble with graphic novel, Nathan hale on history topics, World War I, not focusing on true evil, not surface evil. Cartoon evil like taking over the world is fun. Voldemort should be the same. It's the most stand out level of asynchrony for him. Could this be that for her?

DeHe

That may be a chicken/egg issue. There was a study of people with autism that found that they typically focus on very different things (visually) when watching movies than neurotypical people. They don't look at the characters' faces, for example, they focus on other things in the picture. As a result, they miss cues about the characters and plot, and the whole thing is not very meaningful.

I agree about not forcing eye contact during intense conversations. We have focused on looking like you're paying attention when in class, and when being given directions, and in social repartee. Occasions where you may get in trouble if you don't look like you're doing it right.

It is, however, a skill that can improve with practice.

She loves fiction and books, and does great with reading comprehension (maximum score on a state test) She just isn't very into screens. She also doesn't like video games that much (the exception was a very beautiful, visual game we had that was no-conflict). But we are a low-screen house and don't have cable. I don't think this is especially related.


Oh, definitely reactive. She is the classic giftie in the sense of being highly concerned with justice and highly sensitive to emotional or upsetting scenes. She gets very emotionally involved with books.