Attunement: Looking for Fun!

As Dr. Almi Klin once said, "if a child spends his time looking at faces, he becomes an expert on faces. If a child spends his time looking at objects, he becomes an expert on objects." To this end, it is really, really important that we teach our children, who have autism, to shift their attention from objects to people. They need to learn to look at faces so that they can see facial expressions, see what another person is looking at, and in essence, "see" what someone might be thinking. The first step in this process is to help the child learn that it is fun to look at another person's face. That is, the face must become something that is reinforcing to look at. It must not be: look at my eyes because I hold a piece of candy near my eyes, but look at my eyes because my eyes can share information. My face can share information. To this end, it is important to work on attunement with a child. Attunement is when the child looks at your face to share the moment/ to share a reaction/ to read a reaction.

When a child is a baby, "attunement" is thrust upon him when: he is held in his mother's arms close to her face/ he is in the carriage and his caregiver leans over to play with him or tend to him/ he is held up in a fun moment, looking down at his caregiver's face. In each of these moments, the face of the caregiver is spotlighted. The baby has no choice but to be attuned to the face as the face is framed for him. As the baby gets older, becomes vertical and mobile, opportunities for the face to be spotlighted become less and less. The child is no longer held and can run away! For our children with Autism, we now need to do a redo to capture that spotlighting of the face so as to create opportunities for teaching. To this end, we need to build in moments of attunement throughout the day. We need to make the face fun and reinforcing. We can find moments when the child needs/wants us and embed facial play in those moments. For example, if the child enjoys getting treats, prior to giving the treat, we can smell it, pretend to eat it and then give it to the child. The child will look at the caregiver in anticipation of getting the treat. Once he has the treat, looking is no longer necessary. If the child likes to be tickled, instead of just tickling the child, the adult can approach slowly with hands raised as if to tickle so that the child is anticipating prior to being tickled. It is in the build up of anticipation that the child is looking. Once he is tickled, he will laugh and often, look away.

The face can be spotlighted through attunement throughout the day by using exaggerated facial expressions, both positive and negative. The adult can play peek a boo and pop out from behind jackets, books, and plates. The adult could place the child on his lap, face to face and play short games like: cheek popping, nose hung, or tongue catching. The goal of these moments is to have the child focus on the face. We want the child to want to look at the face. We need the child to be looking at the face to gain essential social information.