Communication, Gaze and Autism ― A Multimodal Interaction Perspective

In this innovative book on autism and gaze from a multimodal interaction perspective, Terhi Korkiakangas examines the role of gaze in everyday situations, asking why ‘eye contact’ matters, and considering the implications of this crucial question for autism. Since persons on the autism spectrum tend to use it differently and might not engage in eye contact in social situations, gaze is a crucial topic for understanding autism, yet we know surprisingly little about this topic in a real-world context, beyond psychological experiments and the research lab.

Drawing on her research on authentic video-recorded social interactions, Korkiakangas shows how a multimodal interaction perspective can shed new light on gaze: what an instance of gaze does, and when, why, and for whom gaze ‘matters’, from both children on the autism spectrum and their social partners’ perspective, including teachers and parents. Grounded in the interactional tradition of conversation analysis, the multimodal interaction perspective offers a major contribution to our understanding of autism by examining communication beyond talk and linguistic resources. Communication, Gaze, and Autism considers both mutual gaze and gaze aversion during talk or silence, alongside facial expressions, gestures, and other body movements, to understand what gaze is used for, and to rethink ‘eye contact’. The book includes a methodological introduction, practical tools for doing multimodal interaction research, and empirical findings. It also considers the voices of those people on the autism spectrum from the blogosphere, who suggest that eye contact has less significance for them and represents a communication difference, rather than a deficit.

This book is designed for anyone with an academic, professional, or personal interest in autism. It will particularly appeal to senior undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, and practitioners in the fields of communication, social interaction, and autism.

Terhi Korkiakangas, PhD, MSc, BSc, is Honorary Senior Research Associate at University College London, Institute of Education. She has a background in psychology, and over ten years of experience in social interaction research with children on the autism spectrum and in health care contexts. She has received several research grants, and her research addresses both social science and clinical audiences.