Autistic children are often completely absorbed by going after sensations that make them feel they exist. They evade any direct bonding and are not able to internalize the security of being. The therapist can help the child feel that it exists and awake an interest for others by giving it careful attention, by following the child’s pace, making imitations and comments on the child’s experience.
It’s the voice that attracts the child’s attention, when it harmonizes joyously and rhythmically with the emotions and sensorial or aesthetical interests of the child. The spontaneous search for the origin of the voice that makes those comments awakes the child’s interest in the direct gaze in the face of the other.
Autism; narrative; voice; gaze