( Everyday Life with Autism )

The human development has three components: Physical (body), cognitive (learning), and socio-emotional development. The three components are tightly related and should develop harmoniously and simultaneously from the first day of birth. (1)

For a typically developed child the vision skills must develop automatically along with the motor and cognitive (learning) skills.

Many children with autism don’t develop vision skills automatically, which explains poor eyes functions, among other dysfunctions related to poor vision skills. We should differentiate between eyesight and vision. The eyesight is the ability to see a certain size at a certain distance, momentarily. Vision is the way our eyes function. It is the ability to understand what we see, store the information, and retrieve what we know at a later time. Vision is a set of skills and the abilities including 20/20 eyesight, focusing, eye movement, two-eyed coordination and tracking. Vision skills can be taught.

Children with autism have some vision patterns. The patterns include poor eye contact, looking through rather than at objects, using peripheral or central vision, and visually sweeping the room instead of looking at certain items in the room.

It is very tiring for a child with autism to view/look at things the way a typically developed child would. A lot of effort is needed to bring both eyes to work together in coordination with the entire body.

Poor vision skills affect: handwriting, reading, attention span, and socialization skills. This explains why there is more than one delayed area in the development of autistic children. All the skills are related and connected. (2)

We are used to hear adults telling the autistic child: “Look at me” while pointing to her/his eyes. Or, “Look me in the eyes”.

How to improve vision skills?

References:

(1) Children, John W. Santrock, Sixth Edition

(2) Vision & Autism. www.asw4autism.org/vision.htm

Tags: autism, communication, eye contact, parenting, senses, tips, vision