Teaching Visual Referencing

The Precursor to "Thinking With Your Eyes"

Visual referencing is the use of the eyes to gain information from people and the environment. The child learns to look at another's face and then to follow the person's gaze. To effectively teach visual referencing skills to a child, we need to go beyond simply telling the child to look, and instead help the child to gain the valuable information that is conveyed through the visual gaze. Through visual referencing a child can gain information such as determining: which object to take, where to find an object, whose turn it is, others' likes and dislikes, emotional responses, the granting of permission, the availability of another person as well as the nature of the relationship between two people.

When a child learns to follow a visual reference from another person, the child sustains his gaze on the other person, follows the other person's eye gaze, and thereby sees the object to which the other person is looking. This skill is a first step towards the development of the child's awareness of another's thoughts, i.e., what is the person looking at/ what is the person thinking about. In essence, it is a very beginning step towards learning about another person's perspective. As we gradually add to the information that we offer the child through visual referencing, the child's ability to "read" other people increases. For example, if the adult looks towards an object and shakes his head no or frowns, the child now learns that the adult does not want or like that object. As the child learns to sustain his gaze to another person, the child can gain information such as: which object and where to place it/ what a person is doing, where he is going next, and his intentions. Conversely, the child can learn that another person is reading her reactions and gaining insight into her intentions. That is, the child is learning that others have thoughts about her. Thus, visual referencing is the precursor to social thinking.