FACE-TO-FACE COMMUNICATION IN THE CASES OF CHILDREN WITH AUTISTIC SPECTRUM DISORDER: CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT THE MEDIATION OF THE EYE.
Autistic Spectrum Disorder; Face to face communication; Meaning Proces.
We present here a research proposal that aims to investigate the role of gaze mediation in face-to-face communication in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The proposed research is in line with the assumptions of Cultural Psychology. In this perspective, human development is revealed in the history of each person's interactions with the world, which are mediated by language. According to Cultural Psychology, the operating principle of these interactions are the processes of meaning that constitute collective and personal cultures. With this perspective, we invested in an alternative to the predominance of studies dedicated to the identification of neurobehavioral aspects in communication in cases of ASD. We justify the relevance of this alternative based on the complexity of the communication phenomenon, which cannot be treated only as processes of a neurological nature. Here we recognize the discussions about the broad interdependence activated between speaker, listener and meaning. This interdependence is neglected in more traditional explanations, which simulate human communication in computer programs. We observed that these explanations are retrieved and referenced in most studies that emphasize communication deficits in cases of ASD. The research participants we propose will be three children diagnosed with ASD, who do not use speech. The analysis will be carried out from video recordings of the interaction of these children during therapeutic activities. Considering that our object of investigation is the mediation of the gaze in communication, we propose a microgenetic analysis, which consists of the second-by-second observation of the actions that make up the interaction, focusing on situations in which the gaze is the main aspect for the emergence of meaning.