From the CEO
As a kid, when I was caught in a lie, my mother would confront me. “Look me in the eye,” she would say, “and tell me where you were.” I soon learned that my skills at lying could never conquer that challenge. I played staring challenges with my twin sister. Whoever looked away first lost. No doubt, I realized that looking people in the eye demonstrated truthfulness and confidence.
When my husband doesn’t look at me when I am talking, I assume he is not listening. When teaching a class, if the students are looking away, I try and speed up or consider a joke because I assume they are bored. It was when a boy I liked made eye contact with me, that I considered he might find me interesting. To “turn your back” on someone, thus avoiding eye contact, is a sure sign they disagree or are angry with you. When something is gruesome or scary, I turn away and avoid looking at it. Too intense eye contact can be an attempt to intimidate.
Eye contact, or the lack of it, can mean many things. Thus is my next lesson learned with autism.
Many people with autism struggle to look others in eye. One person told me that, for her, it was almost painful to do so.
Before working with AWS Foundation, eye contact was a key element of my evaluation with employee interviews. After all, I knew it to be a sign of honesty and engagement. Any candidate who avoided eye contact was possibly inattentive, insecure, bored, or uninterested.
I have learned to put less emphasis on that drilled-in message of “look a person in the eye when you talk with them,” and look for other indications of job qualification. The best person for the job may be the one who is autistic.
Excessive eye contact can be anxiety inducing and overstimulating. To firmly state “look at me when I am talking to you” does nothing but escalate their discomfort. As a new situation becomes more routine; as we work together more and job roles become clearer, eye contact might follow. They might be looking at my forehead instead of in the eye, but, I have learned for sure that it doesn’t have all the power I thought it had.
