Face blindness

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Is there any way to help with this? My almost 10 y/o son has it to a degree and I think it is among the things that impairs his ability to make/keep friends. If you take someone out of their "normal" context, or change a peripheral appearance factor (adding or subtracting earrings) he often has a hard time noticing people he knows.

He spent almost a whole year thinking that a new boy in his school was actually a boy that he didn't like who moved away. He thought he was the old boy, trying to trick him into believing he was someone new. Because they had the same hairstyle. He also snubbed a girl from his school in an out-of-school environment because she had earrings on and "Susie doesn't wear earrings." She was clearly a little weirded out that he didn't recognize her, but was very sweet about it. You can't blame her for finding it strange, though.

He is good at learning to cognitively compensate for his deficits, so if there is some kind of "trick" to help compensate for this, I'd love to learn it so I can teach it to him.

I'm terrible with faces. Once, for some reason, there was a two week period where I recognized people instantly, even at the store, and it was so amazing, but it went away.

I have a mild face blindness. Nothing too serious, just some weird moments. Up to what I know, there's no way to 'fix' it.

My strategie is to make it become a part of normal life and to deal with it with self-confidence. For example: when I meet a new person in a party and I'm having a nice conversation, when it comes to say goodbay, the typical 'see u next time' when leaving, I always warn: 'be aware I won't recognize you next time. Even it's possible I won't recognize you until I see u a few times. Hey, not kidding, I'm serious! Don't say later I didn't warn you!'. If you say that in a selfconfident and a bit mischievous way, it's not weird anymore, but something curious and funny.

Another thing that helps is having pictures of people. Pictures help to remember faces. I would suggest to put in his room the typical corkboard with pinned pics of his friends.

I have a good memory for conversation and specifics about a person so I always wait for the person I know to call me by name before I even acknowledge their presence. When they start talking they will usually give me indicators as to who they are by some of the things they say.

Yes, I am in my early 50s and have always suffered from this. Don't know a cure. I just have to live with it. People often approach me in stores and strike up conversations in ways that make it clear they know me. Some of them will also ask about my parents, as they know them, too. I am stuck there wracking my brain trying to figure out "WHO ARE YOU" In the mean time, I do what I can to maintain a "fake" pleasant facade, and to try and participate in a conversation with people I don't recognize. It's hard enough for people on the Autism/Asperger's spectrum to engage in conversations with people they recognize. Talking to strangers you don't recall, but who know you, and who naturally expect that you know them is very stressful, and very weird.

Does anyone know what causes it? Is it from not looking at people's faces enough? Or is it more complex? Like a coding thing in the brain or something?

I do think the humorous thing might work for him when he gets older. He has an awesome sense of humor and uses it to get him through a lot of hard things. He has even won over some kids who have teased him because of his humor. For example, one time a classmate told him "Only nerds help teachers" (because he always helps the teacher). He said, in a very animated voice, "Yep! That's me! I'm a nerd!...But I'd rather be a nerd than a jerk!" Then they both laughed and the kid eventually warmed up to him.

Prosopagnosia, thou art an old foe of mine... I tend to remember people by using other details such as birthmarks, scars, tattoos, piercings, hair style/color, etc. The instant anything about them changes, I'm back to guessing who the hell they are. I've always heard that some type of damage to certain regions (fusiform region, occipital and temporal lobes) of the brain can be responsible for face-blindedness. However, to my knowledge, I was born with the issue).

As the number one frustration of mine, I wish there was a solution - such as therapy. I find that it is worse for females and kids. I have to rely on hairstyle, clothing, context, and especially voice to help identify people - I am more likely to recognize a co-worker when they are in the office and dressed for such. If I met them on the street, it might take me a bit longer. I also tell people when I first meet them that I am "bad with faces and apologize if I forget"

I think I am mildly faceblind, but maybe I have a lot of coping mechanisms that get around it. A few days ago, one of my nieces was visiting, and I thought she was someone else entirely until my mother called her by name. I was ignoring her because I thought she was one of another niece's friends that I do not know very well and do not talk to. Somewhat embarrassing.

For me, what works is hairstyle, posture, clothing, context, context, and context. Take someone out of that context, change their hair, or whatever, and I'll be lost. No idea how to get around it beyond that point.

Please, don't consider the 'not looking at people's faces enough' option. It's not related at all. Please don't force him to look to people's faces because of it.

(Of course, it's good that he gets used to look at people's eyes. Probably it's difficult for him. I -for example- hate looking at people's eyes. So it's good to make a little effort about it, otherwise he can become too lazy about this subject. But without forcing too much. Well, you know: the middle point. You probably know better than me about it).

The reason it's brain coding. How it feels? Well, as human being you have a special part of the brain that specializes in recognizing faces. In a 'face blindness' person case, it works worse or it doesn't work at all. So you recognize faces... the same as you recognize everything: using the generic visual part of the brain. Think in people who don't belong to your ethnic group: if you are from US or Europe, let's say people from Asia. it's much more difficult to recognize them, isn't it? This is because your 'face recognizer' part of the brain is not trained for those ethnic groups. Many people, here in occident, say 'it's very difficult to guess apart among chinese people'. Well, it's exactly the same feeling... but applied to the people you usually meet.

By the way. Besides the pics, another thing I find very useful to remember people are voices. I focus a lot in voices, because that gives me extra info to know who I'm talking to. If I try to imagine the face of a close friend, right now, it's kind of blurry, not well defined; if I try to imagine the voice, I can recreate it perfectly. And it wouldn't be the first time I have recognized a person when he/she starts talking... so another idea I'd suggest would be a choir. It helps to make friends, to socialize, to learn music and, since you must pay attention to what other people are singing, if helps to pay attention to voices.

I'm working in retail and this is probably my biggest problem. Sometimes I'll go out back to get something and then need a colleague to point out my customer.

I talked to the neuropsych who is helping me about this, he said the underlying cause is that the area of the brain that recognises faces does not get properly developed with inadequate eye contact, and there is not much that can be done abou this, however it is possible to improve it to some degree with practice. The best work around strategies I have found are to try and use other aspects of people instead, like for short term remembering things like clothing, height or build, for long term remembering things like hair style, clothing style, how they walk can be helpful as well. Needless to say I am very good at having conversations with people without letting it on to them that I have absolutely no idea who they are.

Thank God for people having all different hair!

The funniest part is when a neighbor passes by wearing a hat and big dark sunglasses and asks me "why don't you say hello?"

I do both of these things and find they help. Oddly though a lot of people just don't seem to listen ... as they don't understand why I think they're strangers next time I see them

Yep, but then you have the whole right to answer to them 'Well, dude, I told you'

That's exactly what I started doing when I found out it has a name and it's not my fault as my family had always forced me to believe. Now I warn people, and if they get offended next time (which they invariably do), I blame THEM as I was blamed by people all my life. I blame them of being insensitive to people with special needs.

I have this too, mildly. If I join a new class or something, it takes me about 3 months to be able to tell some of the people apart. If they are similar build, hair colour, etc it's really hard to tell them apart at first but I learn eventually somehow, I don't know how. But out of context, I will have trouble remembering who people are. Lots of embarrassing situations have occurred.

I think you should just make your son very aware of it so that he can be more cautious in future. If he is well aware he will probably be less likely to jump to conclusions about who the other person is. He will probably get used to it when he's older anyway.