He "looks while talking" when motivated!

In our group meeting, the team agreed that Aditya's eye contact has dropped.  It is normal when he is listening to us.  However, he does not consistently look at us when he is talking to us.  It feels like he is talking "at" us.

We discussed a number of techniques to help inspire Aditya to look at us more while talking:
1. Joining
2. Celebrations
3. 3E's
4. Playing silly games where we sometimes run out of energy and then need to re-charge with "eye power"!

Aai and Baba also decided to take some games inside to inspire Aditya to "look while talking"

Yesterday, Baba went in with one such game, and Aditya welcomed it with lots of energy, excitement, and enthusiasm!  (He has been vocal about wanting the team to bring in some "eye power" games... so that he can master this goal:-)

In this game, Aditya and Baba sat on two sides of the room.

On one side was the easel with a marker pen.

Baba explained the game, and then Aditya got some "eye power" from Baba to kick start the game.  Right as he got charged with the eye power, he sprinted to the board and wrote down the first line of a story that we had not even begun making: "The rabbits lined up for school."  HE THEN LOOKED at Baba as he said the line back to him.

He darted back, and gave some eye power to Baba so he could take off and go to the board to add his line: "But  the doors were closed!"  Baba looked at Aditya with his eyes as he said both lines back to him, i.e. "The rabbits lined up for school. But  the doors were closed!"

Baba rushed back to his base, and gave some more eye power to Aditya, who went and expanded the story further, and said everything back to Baba while looking at him: "The rabbits lined up for school. But  the doors were closed! Why is it closed, the rabbits asked."

The rest of our story is captured and uploaded here for your pleasure:-) 

As the story began to grow in size,  he started finding it challenging to recall all those lines.  So we introduced the neurotypical trick of looking some at the board, then looking at the listener, then looking back at the board to read the next line, and so on!

As we often find out in the playroom.... it is a question of motivation.  When he is at the top of his motivation, he will gladly look at other human beings while talking to them. 

So the real question is.... are we loving, accepting, listening to, and looking at our super-hero when he talks about his fascinations like the super-cool imaginary ADAX car company and its products?