Towards a Better Understanding of Eye-Contact as an Important Element of Social Learning
- Yuliya Tkachenko
- Jun 9
- 2 min read
In her opinion article Eye Contact: To Teach or Not to Teach? That is Not the Question, Francesca Degli Espinosa defines eye-contact “not as behavior, but as a consequence for the behavior of looking” (2025). Espinosa suggests that it is important to create learning contexts where eye-contact is not viewed as the target behaviour, but the consequence for directing eye-gaze towards a person. However, since children with autism seem to look at other people's faces less frequently compared to their neurotypically developing peers (Jones et al., 2023, in Degli Espinosa, 2025), it is easy to imagine how many opportunities for social learning go unnoticed..
In our previous blog post (CLICK HERE), we summarized how Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Interventions (NDBI), explore the meaningful ways that can be used to promote social learning in children with autism. If we considered eye-contact to be the consequence for “looking behaviours”, what might that look like in the context of NDBI’s?
Consider the example from our previous blog post. A child is spinning the wheels of a toy firetruck. The father joins the play, sharing the activity and taking turns. During one of his turns, the father intentionally spins the wheel so fast that it detaches and continues spinning on the floor(A). Surprised, the child looks up, directing their eyes toward the father(B). This is the target “looking” behavior that we want to reinforce. So how do we do that?
If this “looking” behaviour is immediately followed by a fun consequence (C)(e.g., the father repeats the trick, perhaps with an exaggerated, funny sound (assuming the child tolerates loud noises), we may see an increase in directing eye-gaze towards dad (positive reinforcement). Why? Because directing-eye gaze towards the father is followed by something enjoyable within the context of social interaction initiated by the child! By creating opportunities for “looking” to happen, and reinforcing them when they do, we are opening the door to other fun learning opportunities, such as the father demonstrating other ways to spin the wheel off the firetruck.
Francesca Deglis Espinosa’s opinion was that eye-contact should not be considered the target behaviour, but the consequence for directing eye-gaze towards a person. Parents can strengthen their child’s “looking” behaviour by being present and adding to the enjoyment of their play experiences when “looking” occurs. This will create a solid foundation for the eventual development of more complex play and language skills later on.
References:
Degli Espinosa, F. (2025). Eye Contact: To Teach or Not to Teach? That is Not the Question. Perspectives on Behavior Science, 48, 529-537. Published online 2 June, 2025.
Jones, W., Klaiman, C., Richardson, S., Lambha, M., Reid, M., Hamner, T., ... & Klin, A. (2023). Development and replication of objective measurements of social visual engagement to aid in early diagnosis and assessment of autism. JAMA network open, 6(9), e2330145.
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