Kate Blackham is an astrophysics editor, tutor, mother, and blogger. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she took a teacher training course where she realized she had ‘high levels of autistic traits’ and is now awaiting a formal diagnosis. This week Kate shared her experience pursuing an autism diagnosis, advocacy, and autism acceptance.
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This article was written by Emma Dalmayne, an autistic advocate, activist, and writer from the UK. It was originally published on her website and is reprinted here with her permission.
Imagine if you will a quiet world, well ordered as long as everything has its place..
Imagine a warmth, cozy and comfortingly familiar. Your own warmth, just your own.
Now imagine headlights, bright and intrusive as in a winters night, burning and intense. They glare through the warmth and safety you have and push your eyes deep into their sockets until it’s unbearably painful.
Those headlights are someone’s eyes making intense eye contact with yours.
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One of the first signs of autism in infancy is a lack of eye contact, and autism spectrum individuals may experience this difficulty as a result of neurological differences in visual processing.
Do you remember your parents telling you, “Look at me when I’m talking to you!” demanding you show them respect? Eye contact and autism is a controversial and complex issue. Therapists, educators, and parents often insist autistic people make eye contact with them. They assume that people cannot listen and understand what they are trying to say unless they are making eye contact. Since communication breakdown is a central issue to autism spectrum disorders, parents and professionals naturally feel that eye contact is an important first step to teaching. But anyone who has talked to autistic individuals understands that this issue is more complex than we realize.
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