Making Eye Contact

I’ve always had trouble maintaining direct eye contact to someone when they are speaking to me and looking directly at me. Whenever this happens I’ve usually had a quirk of turning my head to look in the other direction at anything else even though I’m still listening to the person speaking and this makes the latter feel like I’m not paying attention to what they’re talking to me about.

Places this has ranged from include home, school and even work. In all of these more than one person has accused me of not paying attention even when I say otherwise.

I’ve heard from many sources that making direct eye contact is hard for some autistic people which could be due to a combination of discomfort and awkwardness which in turn might stem from the brain not being programmed to handle looking directly at the speaking figure. 

But there can be some ways to improve one’s difficulties for when it comes to making direct eye contact, though. Such ways can be not having your face be turned fully to the person but having your head at a certain angle to show the talker that you’re facing them, practicing with family and or friends until finally getting the hang of it, explaining the situation to others to make them more understanding of it, having your eyes positioned in the direction of someone’s face even if you’re not looking directly in their eyes and taking it easy on yourself instead of forcing yourself to constantly do it. 

So in conclusion, not making eye contact doesn’t mean not listening.