Is it possible to have aspergers with good eye contact???

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I was just fine with eye contact until I realized that people don't like it when I look at them. Now I don't know what to do because if I don't look at them it feels strange, but if I do that feels strange too.

I'm told that the choreography of conversational eye contact goes as follows:

[NB: You are of course having a perfect reciprocal conversation in which one person says a couple of sentences to the other, then the other says a couple of sentences back, etc. In what follows, both parties are assumed to be male, though of course they might not be.]

A begins to speak, glancing briefly at B's face as he does so, then he looks away while he delivers the body of his message. Meanwhile, B looks pretty much continuously at A's face (this is apparently done in order to divine A's emotions about what he's saying). A might occasionally glance back at B, to check out B's reaction to what he's saying, particularly at points where what's being said could cause an emotional reaction or be difficult to follow. When A is finished, he looks at B, to signal that he has ended his turn, and the roles reverse.....A now looks pretty much continuously at B while B speaks, etc. etc.

Don't let that daunt you......it sounds impossible, and it porobably is - I doubt that even NTs do it so perfectly; what I've given is the ideal situation, which doesn't really have to be achieved all the time. And I must confess I'm pretty lousy at following the formula. Main thing to note is that you can stare all you like when they're talking, but not when you're talking.

It would be nice if somebody had a conversation workshop for Aspies, where we could get training for this sort of thing.

Interesting....but does it really work this way in real life? I think that NTs stare at me pretty constantly, even when they are talking to me; at least, that´s what it feels like. And when I interact with my students, I stare at them pretty constantly while I speak; I´ve learned that if I don´t look at them, they might not listen to me at all! And one of my biggest problems with eye contact seems to be with shopkeepers, while I run errands; I just tend to forget to look at them. And they seem to get really upset with me if I don´t make enough eye contact while talking to them....(I only notice this after the fact, of course ). So I think the rules for making eye contact are quite complicated.

I often thought that I don't maintain eye contact well, but I realized this is mostly only during conversations. If I am listening to someone, I can stare at them for long periods of time. I thought I read somewhere that this is an Aspie trait, can anyone confirm it?

My 7 year old has ADHD and Aspergers, and has excellent eye contact and is very social. As stated above, if that is the only thing your doctor is basing the diagnosis on, I would get a second opinion.

Sure, what I wrote is just an idealised version of reality, and it assumes one-on-one. I guess that with your students, you'll glance at each of them in turn while you're talking. Each listener will only get your gaze for a short time, just as in my example. I saw a socially skilled guy doing that while making conversation in a small group - he used those brief glances to include people. I'm sure that if the speaker fixes their gaze on the listener for more than a little while, then the listener may feel threatened. Dad used to do that to me, and it ruined my focus. It kind of assumes that NTs don't feel threatened when speaking to people who are looking at them constantly.

Must say I've never seen the quoted example happen. There's often important objects to look at, if the conversation is about work, or about play, come to that. But sometimes I get quite intense dialogue, and when I feel really engaged with the other person, I do look at their faces almost constantly while they're speaking, and I try to give them the occasional glance while I'm talking to them. I've seen other methods, e.g. one lecturer would close his eyes and turn his ear towards me when I spoke to him, and then he'd nod to signal he'd understood me. I was never in any doubt that he was really listening to me.

Hmmmm......I´m not really sure! I try to look at different people, but in group situations it can get confusing, and there´s often so much going on (in my mind as well) that it´s difficult for me to concentrate 100% on where I´m looking. I´m not always clear about whom I should look at, and for how long, in group situations anyway.....



This sounds a lot like me too; often distracted by objects and other things in some conversations, but no problem looking intensely at the other person if the subject matter really engages me.

LOL --- AMEN! seems to me the NT's are doing all the judging!

I just watched a couple of people who were conversing........it was pretty much how I described it, except that the speaker didn't really avert their gaze as often as I was expecting......I'd say he were looking at the listener's face about half the time. It was also rather difficult to observe the listener without risking offense, as I suppose it's inappropriate to stare at them. I was also hoping that the speaker would notice me looking at him and begin to include me with his gaze, but he didn't. Social ineptitude and exclusionism gets everywhere.

hey, yall -
i'm both sad & pissed off reading this......

you know : at MY age //// i was JUST recently diagnosed and it turned out that for the first 3 decades of my (horribly painful) life i flew under the radar for two reasons ONE OF WHICH was that i have completely normal eye contact

** with a few exceptions....when someone confronts me about something and i can't figure it out, or when i'm surprised, taken aback, awed etc i tend to unabashedly STARE. i also stare when i'm unsure of something or trying to make a decision, and i stare directly at people with somethin of a apparent intensity. often they get quite uncomfortable

do NOT, i repeat do NOT allow this precious child to go undiagnosed as was i : just by some knucklehead professional who uses eye contact as a primary gauge of evaluating aspergers. if someone had picked up on MY condition ere now ....i wouldve gotten the help i needed much, much earlier...

the secondary thing "professionals" often look for in diagnosing asperger's is something of a "disheveled" appearance, including rumpled clothing, poor hygiene ill-grooming and the like...

i'm fastidious about my appearance ...my makeups always perfect ; never a hair out of place and my clothes are fashionable and of high quality. this was actually used - - - believe it or not ~ to RULE out aspergers

in fact that i was a walking textbook case of every OTHER asperger symptom imaginable....

i was labeled schizoid, bi=polar, histrionic ( b/c i alternated between "diva-like" behavior and antisocial tendencies....i was also diagnosed borderline personality, which is probably closer to the truth than others....but if it helps you out any....seek out a diagnosis from a PSYCHIATRIST or PSYCHOLOGIST, **not just a LCSW, therapist, counselort etc**. psychiatrists : being MD's as they are...often have a better understanding of how asperger's manifests itself ......and how the intensity can vary and how even the degrees shift according to the subjects' comfort level etc etc.

- "MISS-DIAGNOSED"

One thing I think, I don't know if my eye contact was really an issue when I was younger, I guess I never really noticed until other people told me I had bad eye contact, probably about 3rd or 4th grade or so. My theory is, maybe I got accused of staring, and then stopped making eye contact because of it? I'm not terribly sure. But I don't remember being accused of bad eye contact until later in elementary school.

When I sat the WAIS several weeks ago the psych wrote in the report that she found it contrasting to my thoughts of having AS that I kept good eye contact throughout the procedure. If only she knew I thought she was hot and I was staring at the beautiful freckles on her nose.

But then I had an assessment with a speech therapist the other day and she noticed I had trouble concentrating when I was looking her in the eye. She said if that ever makes me uncomfortable to not do it because it can make us aspies even more uncomfortable to the point we shutdown. But if I'm comfortable with it then run with it as it can help to make it easier in the long run. She had lovely green eyes btw.

But when I explained to her I had learned to look strangers in the eye through some anxiety therapy, and that I still don't even look my parents in the eye even though I have nothing to fear from them, well...

I think my eye contact is good for an aspie. No NT seems to give me trouble about it so it must be good. As a child I would get told to look at them when they be talking to them. But back then it never registered I was to look at them at all times and I just thought they wanted me to look at them and I would and then look away again. I don't know if my eye contact is normal or not. I do know I don't look them in the eyes so that isn't real eye contact even if you are looking at their faces. Even NTs fake eye contact when they feel too nervous to do it. They will look between the eyes instead or at their mouths or noses or chins. Then other times it's bad. It also happens when I am nervous. I have no idea if that is the social anxiety or the Asperger's. Only way to know is if I am not nervous when talking to someone and I am still not looking at them, then maybe it is the AS. It was worse as a kid and I learned to look at people when talking to them so they know I am speaking to them. I also learned to do it so I know they are speaking to me like when I hear someone peak, look at them first to see who they are looking at. i got tired of embarrassing myself thinking I was being spoken too and it would turn out that person was talking to someone else in the room or talking on their cell phone. If they aren't looking at me, I will not know they are speaking to me so therefore I make sure to look at them when I start speaking. I would say my eye contact varies because I remember looking at other kids and grown ups because I liked seeing how they looked or what they had on or because they were fat or skinny or because they had on a cast. Plus I would look at their eyes to see the colors of them. Wouldn't that be eye contact? I would think so.

I remember looking at my 5th grade teacher's eyes and I described it as "prickley branches" when I looked at them. There was something about his eyes I didn't like.

It's possible but I can't relate.

I was always being told to look at someone when I was talking to them, they said it was because they couldn't understand me but the truth is I'm a mumbler with a tongue tie.

I hate looking at eyes. I see a whole lot of emotion there that is distracting and uncomfortable.

It's impossible to have AS with appropriate eye contact.

Sometimes, people can appear to have normal eye contact, but it's easy to reveal whether it is or not.

Now, if you have all of the other symptoms but appropriate eye contact and other nonverbal cues, you then have PDD-NOS, not AS.

I disprove that. But I'm a narcissist so I welcome rather than fear the HUGE informational input. NTs' entire reality can be found in their eyes. That's why eye contact is so affective - you aren't looking at one person, you're seeing them and the entire hierarchy they're a part of.